.1 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


University  of  Ca 

TixAlNING   SO 


ia  at  Los 

IBRARY. 


THE     ATLANTIC     MONTHLY    LIBRARY 
OF   TRAVEL 

VI 
IN   THE   LEVANT 

BY 
CHARLES   DUDLEY   WARNER 


x>. 


1829-1900. 


THE   ATLANTIC  MONTHLY 


LIBRARY  OF  TRAVEL 


VOLUME  SIX 


IN  THE  LEVANT 


BY 

CHARLES   DUDLEY   WARNER 

AUTHOR   OF 

"  MY   SUMMER   IN   A   GARDEN,"    "  BACK-LOG   STUDIES," 

'  SAUNTERINGS,"  "  BADDECK,  AND  THAT  SORT  OF  THING," 

"MY   WINTER   ON    THE   NILE,"   ETC.,  ETC. 


BOSTON   AND   NEW    YORK 

HOUGHTON   MIFFLIN   &   COMPANY 

THE   RIVERSIDE   PRESS 

CAMBRIDGE 


1907 


UnivBraity  of  California  at  Loa 
TRAINING  SCHOOL  LIBRARY. 


Copyright,  1876, 
BY  CHARLES  DUDLEY  WARNER. 

Copyright,  tS92, 
BY  HOUGHTON,   MIFFLIN   &  CO, 

Copyright,  1904, 
BY  SUSAN  LEE  WARNER. 

All  rights  reserved. 


College 
Library 


\AJ34 


u 


TO 

WILLIAM  D.  HOWELLS 

THESE    NOTES    OF    ORIENTAL    TRAVEL 
ARE    FRATERNALLY   INSCRIBED 

¥ 


f  vr*N  ^   '1   *"""  ^^ 

97^.  o? 


PREFACE    TO    THE    ILLUSTRATED 
EDITION 

IN  turning  over  the  pages  of  In  the  Levant 
with  a  view  to  its  revision  for  the  present  illustrated 
edition,  I  am  reminded  that  it  was  written  seven- 
teen years  ago.  That  is  a  considerable  portion  out 
of  an  individual  life,  and  indeed  in  that  of  a  West- 
ern republic,  but  in  the  East  it  is  scarcely  the 
space  between  a  sleeping  and  a  waking.  Since  it 
was  written,  the  Russo-Turkish  war  has  been 
fought ;  philanthropy  and  fanaticism  have  again 
and  again  attempted  to  modernize,  or  to  restore 
to  the  ancient  ways,  the  hills  and  wildernesses 
of  Judea;  the  English  flag  has  been  planted  in 
Cyprus  ;  English  law,  arms,  and  manners  have 
encamped  in  Egypt ;  the  Sultan  has  been  inur- 
ilered,  the  Sultan  has  been  deposed  as  imbecile, 
the  Sultan  still  sits  in  his  seraglio,  lazily  watching 
his  iron-dads  in  the  Golden  Horn,  in  the  midst  of  a 
civilization  that  has  been  steadily  decaying  for  five 
hundred  years,  and  in  adding  all  the  Occidental 
vices  to  the  Oriental  immoralities,  and  assuming 


Via  PREFACE 

the  weight  of  modern  armaments  and  military  ex- 
pense, has  exhibited  the  endurance  that  once  made 
the  Turk  the  martial  terror  of  Europe.  That 
Turkey  as  a  political  factor  is  only  held  for  a  coun- 
ter in  the  game  that  jealous  rivals  are  playing  for 
the  possession  of  the  East  may  be  as  true  as  it 
was  when  Russia  made  her  first  movement  on 
Constantinople  ;  but  so  long  as  the  head  of  the 
Moslem  faith  is  a  Turk,  so  long  must  he  be  con- 
sidered in  the  contact  of  modern  life  with  that 
still  aggressive  and  growing  religion,  with  its  al- 
most innumerable  populations  in  Central  Asia, 
India,  and  Africa. 

Changes  there  have  been  in  Palestine,  —  better 
roads,  better  hotels,  better  organizations  for  con- 
ducting the  steps  of  irreverent  sight-seers  among 
historic  ruins  the  commercial  value  of  which  the 
Orientals  appreciate ;  Constantinople  itself  has 
taken  new  steps  in  the  emancipation  of  its  women 
and  the  adoption  of  Frank  ways  ;  last  winter,  in 
Cairo,  I  found  an  enormous  superimposition  of  Eu- 
ropean life,  and  a  wonderful  change  in  the  admin- 
istration of  justice,  of  finance,  of  the  laying  and 
collection  of  taxes,  of  agricultural  production,  of 
improved  irrigation,  in  the  physical  well-being  of 
the  Fellaheen,  —  all  and  entirely  due  to  the  still  un- 
spent English  sense  of  duty  and  love  of  order,  and 
the  splendid,  conquering,  what  shall  I  call  it?  — 


PREFACE  IX 

moral  egotism.  But  for  all  that,  the  Oriental  life, 
the  essential  current  of  an  existence  which  is  as 
strange  to  us  as  it  was  to  Herodotus,  still  holds  on 
its  way,  not  much  more  changed  in  its  character 
than  is  the  Mediterranean  by  the  modern  fleets  of 
war  and  commerce  which  vex  its  surface. 

There  is  much  that  I  might  add  to  this  record 
of  a  little  pilgrimage,  but  I  see  nothing  that  it  is 
worth  while  to  change.  In  Cairo,  I  entered,  in  the 
desolate  cemetery,  the  little  tomb-building  where 
lies  that  famous  dragoman  Mohammed  Abd-el-Atti, 
under  a  gorgeous  cenotaph  erected  by  his  widow. 
I  wondered  if  he  has  found  the  sort  of  Paradise  he 
expected.  Those  who  were  his  comrades  speak  of 
him  with  serious  respect,  in  a  low  voice,  as  having 
been  very  rich.  I  trust  he  still  is.  The  world  he 
delighted  in  is  very  much  as  he  left  it,  and  I  am 
sure  that  if  we  could  again  go  over  the  scenes  that 
his  shrewdness  and  sentiment  made  at  once  poetic 
and  comical,  I  should  be  as  much  disillusionized 

and  fascinated  as  I  was  before. 

C.  D.  W. 

HARTFORD,  May,  1892. 


PAGE 

1 

38 

69 

94 

129 

174 


CONTENTS 

I.  FROM  JAFFA  TO  JERUSALEM     . 

II.  JERUSALEM 

III.  HOLY  PLACES  OF  THE  HOLY  CITY  . 

IV.  NEIGHBORHOODS  OF  JERUSALEM   . 
V.  GOING  DOWN  TO  JERICHO 

VI.  BETHLEHEM  AND  MAR  SABA 
VII.  THE    FAIR   OF  MOSES  ;     THE  ARMENIAN  PA- 
TRIARCH          207 

VIII.  DEPARTURE  FROM  JERUSALEM      .        .        .  218 

IX.  ALONG  THE  SYRIAN  COAST       ....  225 

X.  BEYROUT.  —  OVER  THE  LEBANON          .        .  234 

XI.  BA'ALBEK 243 

XII.  ON  THE  ROAD  TO  DAMASCUS        .        .        .  255 

XIII.  THE  OLDEST  OF  CITIES 263 

XIV.  OTHER  SIGHTS  IN  DAMASCUS         .        .        .  282 
XV.  SOME  PRIVATE  HOUSES 291 

XVI.  SOME  SPECIMEN  TRAVELERS         .        .        .  302 

XVII.  INTO  DAYLIGHT  AGAIN.  —  EPISODE  OF  TURKISH 

JUSTICE 315 

XVIII.  CYPRUS 338 

XIX.  THROUGH  SUMMER  SEAS.  —  RHODES         .        .  357 

XX.  AMONG  THE  .^GEAN  ISLANDS       .        .        .  367 

XXI.  SMYRNA  AND  EPHESUS      .        .        .        .        .  375 

XXII.  THE  ADVENTURERS 392 

XXIII.  THROUGH  THE  DARDANELLES  ....  401 

XXIV.  CONSTANTINOPLE 406 

XXV.  THE  SERAGLIO.  ST.  SOPHIA,  HIPPODROME,  ETC.  417 

XXVI.  SAUNTERINGS  ABOUT  CONSTANTINOPLE    .         .  434 

XXVII.  FROM  THE  GOLDEN  HORN  TO  THE  ACROPOLIS  472 

XXVIII.  ATHENS 494 

XXIX.  ELEUSIS.  PLATO'S  ACADEME.  ETC.      .        .        .  513 

XXX.  TBLBOUGH  THE  GULF  OF  CORINTH  535 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTKATIONS 


PAGK 

CHARLES  DUDLEY  WARNEB Frontispiece 

JERUSALEM 34 

POOL  OF  SILOAM 46 

VIA  DOLOROSA 50 

CHURCH  OF  THE  HOLY  SEPULCHRE 70 

DAMASCUS  GATE 102 

OLIVE-TREE  IN  THE  GARDEN  OF  GETHSEMANE      .    .    .    .116 

BETHLEHF.M 176 

CONVENT  OF  MAR  SABA 194 

NAZARETH 218 

RUINS  OF  THE  TEMPLE  OF  BAAL 246 

RUINS  OF  BA'AUBEK 252 

A  DAMASCUS  HOUSE 296 

AN  EASTERN  DERVISH 312 

STATUE  OF  HERCULES  AT  CONSTANTINOPLE  MUSEUM,  EX- 
HUMED AT  CYPRUS  BY  DI  CESNOLA 348 

RUINS  OF  THE  TEMPLE  OF  DIANA 384 

CONSTANTINOPLE 406 

MOSQUE  OF  ST.  SOPHIA 424 

THE  SULTAN  GOING  TO  PRAY       440 

A  TURKISH  LADY 468 

THE  ACROPOLIS  AND  TEMPLE  OF  JUPITER 498 

THE  ERECHTHEUM  AND  PARTHENON 506 

CARYATID  FROM  THE  ERECHTHEUM 510 

FRIKZE  FROM  THE  PARTHENON 520 

FIGURES  SUPPORTING  THEATRE  OF  BACCHUS  STAGE     .     ,  534 


IN  THE  LEVANT 

I 

FROM  JAFFA  TO  JERUSALEM 

INCE  Jonah  made  his  short  and  igno- 
minious voyage  along  the  Syrian  coast, 
mariners  have  had  the  same  difficulty 
in  getting  ashore  that  the  sailors  ex- 
perienced who  attempted  to  land  the  prophet ;  his 
tedious  though  safe  method  of  disembarking  was 
not  followed  by  later  navigators,  and  the  landing 
at  Jaffa  has  remained  a  vexatious  and  half  the 
time  an  impossible  achievement. 

The  town  lies  upon  the  open  sea  and  has  no 
harbor.  It  is  only  in  favorable  weather  that  ves- 
sels can  anchor  within  a  mile  or  so  from  shore,  and 
the  Mediterranean  steamboats  often  pass  the  port 
without  being  able  to  land  either  freight  or  passen- 
gers. In  the  usual  condition  of  the  sea  the  big  fish 
would  have  found  it  difficult  to  discharge  Jonah 
without  stranding  itself,  and  it  seems  that  it  waited 
three  days  for  the  favorable  moment.  The  best 
chance  for  landing  nowadays  is  in  the  early  morn- 
ing, in  that  calm  period  when  the  winds  and  the 


2  FROM   JAFFA   TO   JERUSALEM 

waves  alike  await  the  movements  of  the  sun.  It 
was  at  that  hour,  on  the  5th  of  April,  1875,  that 
we  arrived  from  Port  Said  on  the  French  steamboat 
Erymanthe.  The  night  had  been  pleasant  and  the 
sea  tolerably  smooth,  but  not  to  the  apprehensions 
of  some  of  the  passengers,  who  always  declare  that 
they  prefer,  now,  a  real  tempest  to  a  deceitful 
groundswell.  On  a  recent  trip  a  party  had  been 
prevented  from  landing,  owing  to  the  deliberation 
of  the  ladies  in  making  their  toilet ;  by  the  time 
they  had  attired  themselves  in  a  proper  manner 
to  appear  in  Southern  Palestine,  the  golden  hour 
had  slipped  away,  and  they  were  able  only  to  look 
upon  the  land  which  their  beauty  and  clothes  would 
have  adorned.  None  of  us  were  caught  in  a  like  de- 
linquency. At  the  moment  the  anchor  went  down 
we  were  bargaining  with  a  villain  to  take  us  ashore, 
a  bargain  in  which  the  yeasty  and  waxingly  uneasy 
sea  gave  the  boatman  all  the  advantage. 

Our  little  company  of  four  is  guided  by  the  phi- 
losopher and  dragoman  Mohammed  Abd-el-Atti, 
of  Cairo,  who  has  served  us  during  the  long  voyage 
of  the  Nile.  He  is  assisted  in  his  task  by  the 
Abyssinian  boy  Ahman  Abdallah,  the  brightest 
and  most  faithful  of  servants.  In  making  his  first 
appearance  in  the  Holy  Land  he  has  donned  over 
his  gay  Oriental  costume  a  blue  Frank  coat,  and 
set  his  fez  back  upon  his  head  at  an  angle  exceed- 
ing the  slope  of  his  forehead.  His  black  face  has 
an  unusual  lustre,  and  his  eyes  dance  with  more  than 
their  ordinary  merriment  as  he  points  excitedly  to 
the  shore  and  cries,  "  Yafa  !  Mist'r  Dunham." 


THE   JAFFA    OF   ANTIQUITY  3 

The  information  is  addressed  to  Madame,  whom 
\hman,  utterly  regardless  of  sex,  invariably  ad- 
dresses by  the  name  of  one  of  our  traveling  com- 
panions on  the  Nile. 

"Yes,  marm;  you  see  him,  Yafa,"  interposed 
Abd-el-Atti,  coming  forward  with  the  air  of  brush- 
ing aside,  as  impertinent,  the  geographical  infor- 
mation of  his  subordinate;  "not  much,  I  tink,  but 
him  bery  old.  Let  us  to  go  ashore." 

Jaffa,  or  Yafa,  or  Joppa,  must  have  been  a 
well-established  city,  since  it  had  maritime  deal- 
ings with  Tarshish,  in  that  remote  period  in  which 
the  quaint  story  of  Jonah  is  set,  —  a  piece  of  He- 
brew literature  that  bears  internal  evidence  of 
great  antiquity  in  its  extreme  naivete.  Although 
the  Canaanites  did  not  come  into  Palestine  till 
about  2400  B.  c.,  that  is  to  say,  about  the  time  of 
the  twelfth  dynasty  in  Egypt,  yet  there  is  a  rea- 
sonable tradition  that  Jaffa  existed  before  the 
Deluge.  For  ages  it  has  been  the  chief  Mediter- 
ranean port  of  great  Jerusalem.  Here  Solomon 
landed  his  Lebanon  timber  for  the  Temple.  The 
town  swarmed  more  than  once  with  the  Roman 
legions  on  their  way  to  crush  a  Jewish  insurrection. 
It  displayed  the  banner  of  the  Saracen  host  a  few 
years  after  the  Hegira.  And,  later,  when  the 
Crusaders  erected  the  standard  of  the  cross  on  its 
walls,  it  was  the  depot  of  supplies  which  Venice 
and  Genoa  and  other  rich  cities  contributed  to  the 
holy  war.  Great  kingdoms  and  conquerors  have 
possessed  it  in  turn,  and  for  thousands  of  years 
merchants  have  trusted  their  fortunes  to  its  peril- 


4  FROM   JAFFA    TO    JERUSALEM 

ous  roadstead.  And  yet  no  one  has  ever  thought 
it  worth  while  to  give  it  a  harbor  by  the  construc- 
tion of  a  mole,  or  a  pier  like  that  at  Port  Said.  I 
should  say  that  the  first  requisite  in  the  industrial, 
to  say  nothing  of  the  moral,  regeneration  of  Pal- 
estine is  a  harbor  at  Jaffa. 

The  city  is  a  cluster  of  irregular,  flat-roofed 
houses,  and  looks  from  the  sea  like  a  brown  bowl 
turned  bottom  up;  the  roofs  are  terraces  on  which 
the  inhabitants  can  sleep  on  summer  nights,  and 
to  which  they  can  ascend,  out  of  the  narrow,  evil- 
smelling  streets,  to  get  a  whiff  of  sweet  odor  from 
the  orange  gardens  which  surround  the  town.  The 
ordinary  pictures  of  Jaffa  do  it  ample  justice. 
The  chief  feature  in  the  view  is  the  hundreds  of 
clumsy  feluccas  tossing  about  in  the  aggravating 
waves,  diving  endwise  and  dipping  sidewise, 
guided  a  little  by  the  long  sweeps  of  the  sailors, 
but  apparently  the  sport  of  the  most  uncertain  bil- 
lows. A  swarm  of  them,  four  or  five  deep,  sur- 
rounds our  vessel ;  they  are  rising  and  falling  in 
the  most  sickly  motion,  and  dashing  into  each 
other  in  the  frantic  efforts  of  their  rowers  to  get 
near  the  gangway  ladder.  One  minute  the  boat 
nearest  the  stairs  rises  as  if  it  would  mount  into 
the  ship,  and  the  next  it  sinks  below  the  steps  into 
a  frightful  gulf.  The  passengers  watch  the  pass- 
ing opportunity  to  jump  on  board,  as  people  dive 
into  the  "lift"  of  a  hotel.  Freight  is  discharged 
into  lighters  that  are  equally  frisky;  and  it  is 
taken  on  and  off  splashed  with  salt  water,  and 
liable  to  a  thousand  accidents  in  the  violence  of 
the  transit. 


A    SHAKY    STAIRWAY  5 

Before  the  town  stretches  a  line  of  rocks  worn 
for  ages,  upon  which  the  surf  is  breaking  and 
sending  white  jets  into  the  air.  It  is  through  a 
narrow  opening  in  this  that  our  boat  is  borne  on 
the  back  of  a  great  wave,  and  we  come  into  a  strip 
of  calmer  water  and  approach  the  single  landing- 
stairs.  These  stairs  are  not  so  convenient  as  those 
of  the  vessel  we  have  just  left,  and  two  persons 
can  scarcely  pass  on  them.  But  this  is  the  only 
sea  entrance  to  Jaffa;  if  the  Jews  attempt  to  re- 
turn and  enter  their  ancient  kingdom  this  way,  it 
will  take  them  a  long  time  to  get  in.  A  sea-wall 
fronts  the  town,  fortified  by  a  couple  of  rusty  can- 
non at  one  end,  and  the  passage  is  through  the 
one  gate  at  the  head  of  these  stairs. 

It  seems  forever  that  we  are  kept  waiting  at  the 
foot  of  this  shaky  stairway.  Two  opposing  cur- 
rents are  struggling  to  get  up  and  down  it :  excited 
travelers,  porters  with  trunks  and  knapsacks,  and 
dragomans  who  appear  to  be  pushing  their  way 
through  simply  to  show  their  familiarity  with  the 
country.  It  is  a  dangerous  ascent  for  a  delicate 
woman.  Somehow,  as  we  wait  at  this  gate  where 
so  many  men  of  note  have  waited,  and  look  upon 
this  sea-wall  upon  which  have  stood  so  many  of  the 
mighty  from  Solomon  to  Origen,  from  Tiglath- 
Pileser  to  Richard  Cosur  de  Lion,  the  historical 
figure  which  most  pervades  Jaffa  is  that  of  the 
whimsical  Jonah,  whose  connection  with  it  was  the 
slightest.  There  is  no  evidence  that  he  ever  re- 
turned here.  Josephus,  who  takes  liberties  with 
the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  says  that  a  whale  carried 


6  FROM    JAFFA    TO    JERUSALEM 

the  fugitive  into  the  Euxine  Sea,  and  there  dis- 
charged him  much  nearer  to  Nineveh  than  he 
would  have  been  if  he  had  kept  with  the  convey- 
ance in  which  he  first  took  passage  and  landed  at 
Tarsus.  Probably  no  one  in  Jaffa  noticed  the  lit- 
tle man  as  he  slipped  through  this  gate  and  took 
ship,  and  yet  his  simple  embarkation  from  the 
town  has  given  it  more  notoriety  than  any  other 
event.  Thanks  to  an  enduring  piece  of  literature, 
the  unheroic  Jonah  and  his  whale  are  better  known 
than  St.  Jerome  and  his  lion ;  they  are  the  earliest 
associates  and  Oriental  acquaintances  of  all  well- 
brought-up  children  in  Christendom.  For  myself, 
I  confess  that  the  strictness  of  many  a  New  Eng- 
land Sunday  has  been  relieved  by  the  perusal  of 
his  unique  adventure.  He  in  a  manner  antici- 
pated the  use  of  the  monitors  and  of  cigar-shaped 
submerged  sea-vessels. 

When  we  have  struggled  up  the  slippery  stairs 
and  come  through  the  gate,  we  wind  about  for 
some  time  in  a  narrow  passage  on  the  side  of  the 
sea,  and  then  cross  through  the  city,  still  on  foot. 
It  is  a  rubbishy  place ;  the  streets  are  steep  and 
crooked;  we  pass  through  archways,  we  ascend 
steps,  we  make  unexpected  turns ;  the  shops  are  a 
little  like  bazaars,  but  rather  Italian  than  Orien- 
tal ;  we  pass  a  pillared  mosque  and  a  Moslem  foun- 
tain ;  we  come  upon  an  ancient  square,  in  the  cen- 
tre of  which  is  a  round  fountain  with  pillars  and  a 
canopy  of  stone,  and  close  about  it  are  the  bazaars 
of  merchants.  This  old  fountain  is  profusely 
sculptured  with  Arabic  inscriptions ;  the  stones  are 


HOTEL    OF    THE   TWELVE    TRIBES  7 

worn  and  have  taken  the  rich  tint  of  age,  and  the 
sunlight  blends  it  into  harmony  with  the  gay  stuffs 
of  the  shops  and  the  dark  skins  of  the  idlers  on 
the  pavement.  We  come  into  the  great  market  of 
fruit  and  vegetables,  where  vast  heaps  of  oranges, 
like  apples  in  a  New  England  orchard,  line  the 
way  and  fill  the  atmosphere  with  a  golden  tinge. 

The  Jaffa  oranges  are  famous  in  the  Orient; 
they  grow  to  the  size  of  ostrich  eggs,  they  have  a 
skin  as  thick  as  the  hide  of  a  rhinoceros,  and,  in 
their  season,  the  pulp  is  sweet,  juicy,  and  tender. 
It  is  a  little  late  now,  and  we  open  one  golden 
globe  after  another  before  we  find  one  that  is  not 
dry  and  tasteless  as  a  piece  of  punk.  But  one 
cannot  resist  buying  such  magnificent  fruit. 

Outside  the  walls,  through  broad  dusty  high- 
ways, by  lanes  of  cactus  hedges  and  in  sight  again 
of  the  sea  breaking  on  a  rocky  shore,  we  come  to 
the  Hotel  of  the  Twelve  Tribes,  occupied  now  prin- 
cipally by  Cook's  tribes,  most  of  whom  appear  to 
be  lost.  In  the  adjacent  lot  are  pitched  the  tents 
of  Syrian  travelers,  and  one  of  Cook's  expeditions 
is  in  all  the  bustle  of  speedy  departure.  The 
bony,  nervous  Syrian  horses  are  assigned  by  lot  to 
the  pilgrims,  who  are  excellent  people  from  Eng- 
land and  America,  and  most  of  them  as  unaccus- 
tomed to  the  back  of  a  horse  as  to  that  of  an  os- 
trich. It  is  touching  to  see  some  of  the  pilgrims 
walk  around  the  animals  which  have  fallen  to  them, 
wondering  how  they  are  to  get  on,  which  side  they 
are  to  mount,  and  how  they  are  to  stay  on.  Some 
have  already  mounted,  and  are  walking  the  steeds 


8  FROM    JAFFA    TO    JERUSALEM 

carefully  round  the  inclosure  or  timidly  essaying 
a  trot.  Nearly  every  one  concludes,  after  a  trial, 
that  he  would  like  to  change,  —  something  not 
quite  so  much  up  and  down,  you  know,  an  easier 
saddle,  a  horse  that  more  unites  gentleness  with 
spirit.  Some  of  the  dragomans  are  equipped  in  a 
manner  to  impress  travelers  with  the  perils  of  the 
country.  One,  whom  I  remember  on  the  Nile  as 
a  mild  though  showy  person,  has  bloomed  here  into 
a  Bedawee:  he  is  fierce  in  aspect,  an  arsenal  of 
weapons,  and  gallops  furiously  about  upon  a  horse 
loaded  down  with  accoutrements.  This,  however, 
is  only  the  beginning  of  our  real  danger. 

After  breakfast  we  sallied  out  to  see  the  sights : 
besides  the  house  of  Simon  the  tanner,  they  are 
not  many.  The  house  of  Simon  is,  as  it  was  in 
the  time  of  St.  Peter,  by  the  seaside.  We  went 
upon  the  roof  (and  it  is  more  roof  than  anything 
else)  where  the  apostle  lay  down  to  sleep  and  saw 
the  vision,  and  looked  around  upon  the  other  roofs 
and  upon  the  wide  sweep  of  the  tumbling  sea.  In 
the  court  is  a  well,  the  stone  curb  of  which  is 
deeply  worn  in  several  places  by  the  rope,  showing 
long  use.  The  water  is  brackish;  Simon  may 
have  tanned  with  it.  The  house  has  not  probably 
been  destroyed  and  rebuilt  more  than  four  or  five 
times  since  St.  Peter  dwelt  here ;  the  Romans  once 
built  the  entire  city.  The  chief  room  is  now  a 
mosque.  We  inquired  for  the  house  of  Dorcas, 
but  that  is  not  shown,  although  I  understood  that 
we  could  see  her  grave  outside  the  city.  It  is  a 
great  oversight  not  to  show  the  house  of  Dorcas, 


THE   GOSPEL  OP   DEMOCRACY 

and  one  that  I  cannot  believe  will  long  annoy  pil- 
grims in  these  days  of  multiplied  discoveries  of 
sacred  sites. 

Whether  this  is  the  actual  spot  where  the  house 
of  Simon  stood,  I  do  not  know,  nor  does  it  much 
matter.  Here,  or  hereabouts,  the  apostle  saw  that 
marvelous  vision  which  proclaimed  to  a  weary 
world  the  brotherhood  of  man.  From  this  spot 
issued  the  gospel  of  democracy:  "Of  a  truth,  I 
perceive  that  God  is  no  respecter  of  persons." 
From  this  insignificant  dwelling  went  forth  the 
edict  that  broke  the  power  of  tyrants,  and  loosed 
the  bonds  of  slaves,  and  ennobled  the  lot  of  wo- 
man, and  enfranchised  the  human  mind.  Of  all 
places  on  earth  I  think  there  is  only  one  more 
worthy  of  pilgrimage  by  all  devout  and  liberty- 
loving  souls. 

We  were  greatly  interested,  also,  in  a  visit  to 
the  well-known  school  of  Miss  Arnot,  a  mission 
school  for  girls  in  the  upper  chambers  of  a  house 
in  the  most  crowded  part  of  Jaffa.  With  modest 
courage  and  tact  and  self-devotion  this  lady  has 
sustained  it  here  for  twelve  years,  and  the  fruits 
of  it  already  begin  to  appear.  We  found  twenty 
or  thirty  pupils,  nearly  all  quite  young,  and  most 
of  them  daughters  of  Christians ;  they  are  taught 
in  Arabic  the  common  branches,  and  some  English, 
and  they  learn  to  sing.  They  sang  for  us  English 
tunes  like  any  Sunday-school ;  a  strange  sound  in 
a  Moslem  town.  There  are  one  or  two  other 
schools  of  a  similar  character  in  the  Orient,  con- 
ducted as  private  enterprises  by  ladies  of  culture; 


10  FROM   JAFFA   TO    JERUSALEM 

and  I  think  there  is  no  work  nobler,  and  none 
more  worthy  of  liberal  support,  or  more  likely  to 
result  in  giving  women  a  decent  position  in  East- 
ern society. 

On  a  little  elevation  a  half  -  mile  outside  the 
walls  is  a  cluster  of  wooden  houses,  which  were 
manufactured  in  America.  There  we  found  the 
remnants  of  the  Adams  colony,  only  half  a  dozen 
families  out  of  the  original  two  hundred  and  fifty 
persons;  two  or  three  men  and  some  widows  and 
children.  The  colony  built  in  the  centre  of  their 
settlement  an  ugly  little  church  out  of  Maine  tim- 
ber ;  it  now  stands  empty  and  staring,  with  broken 
windows.  It  is  not  difficult  to  make  this  adven- 
ture appear  romantic.  Those  who  engaged  in  it 
were  plain  New  England  people,  many  of  them  ig- 
norant, but  devout  to  fanaticism.  They  had  heard 
the  prophets  expounded,  and  the  prophecies  of  the 
latter  days  unraveled,  until  they  came  to  believe 
that  the  day  of  the  Lord  was  nigh,  and  that  they 
had  laid  upon  them  a  mission  in  the  fulfillment  of 
the  divine  purposes.  Most  of  them  were  from 
Maine  and  New  Hampshire,  accustomed  to  bitter 
winters  and  to  wring  their  living  from  a  niggardly 
soil.  I  do  not  wonder  that  they  were  fascinated 
by  the  pictures  of  a  fair  land  of  blue  skies,  a  land 
of  vines  and  olives  and  palms,  where  they  were 
undoubtedly  called  by  the  Spirit  to  a  life  of  greater 
sanctity  and  considerable  ease  and  abundance.  1 
think  I  see  their  dismay  when  they  first  pitched 
their  tents  amid  this  Moslem  squalor,  and  at- 
tempted to  "squat,"  Western  fashion,  upon  the 


THE   ADVENT   COLONY  11 

skirts  of  the  Plain  of  Sharon,  which  has  been 
for  some  ages  preempted.  They  erected  houses, 
however,  and  joined  the  other  inhabitants  of  the 
region  in  a  struggle  for  existence.  But  Adams, 
the  preacher  and  president,  had  not  faith  enough 
to  wait  for  the  unfolding  of  prophecy ;  he  took  to 
strong  drink,  and  with  general  bad  management 
the  whole  enterprise  came  to  grief,  and  the  deluded 
people  were  rescued  from  starvation  only  by  the 
liberality  of  our  government. 

There  was  the  germ  of  a  good  idea  in  the  rash 
undertaking.  If  Palestine  is  ever  to  be  repeopled, 
its  coming  inhabitants  must  have  the  means  of  sub- 
sistence ;  and  if  those  now  here  are  to  be  redeemed 
to  a  better  life,  they  must  learn  to  work;  before 
all  else  there  must  come  a  revival  of  industry  and 
a  development  of  the  resources  of  the  country. 
To  send  here  Jews  or  Gentiles,  and  to  support 
them  by  charity,  only  adds  to  the  existing  misery. 

It  was  eight  years  ago  that  the  Adams  commu- 
nity exploded.  Its  heirs  and  successors  are  Ger- 
mans, a  colony  from  Wiirtemberg,  an  Advent  sect 
akin  to  the  American,  but  more  single-minded 
and  devout.  They  own  the  ground  upon  which 
they  have  settled,  having  acquired  a  title  from  the 
Turkish  government ;  they  have  erected  substantial 
houses  of  stone  and  a  large  hotel,  The  Jerusalem, 
and  give  many  evidences  of  shrewdness  and  thrift 
as  well  as  piety.  They  have  established  a  good 
school,  in  which,  with  German  thoroughness, 
Latin,  English,  and  the  higher  mathematics  are 
taught,  and  an  excellent  education  may  be  ofc 


12  FROM   JAFFA   TO   JERUSALEM 

tained.  More  land  the  colony  is  not  permitted  to 
own ;  but  they  hire  ground  outside  the  walls,  which 
they  farm  to  advantage. 

I  talked  with  one  of  the  teachers,  a  thin  young 
ascetic  in  spectacles,  whose  severity  of  countenance 
and  demeanor  was  sufficient  to  rebuke  all  the 
Oriental  levity  I  had  encountered  during  the  win- 
ter. There  was  in  him  and  in  the  other  leaders  an 
air  of  sincere  fanaticism,  and  a  sobriety  and  integ- 
rity in  the  common  laborers,  which  are  the  best 
omens  for  the  success  of  the  colony.  The  leaders 
told  us  that  they  thought  the  Americans  came  here 
with  the  expectation  of  making  money  uppermost 
in  mind,  and  hardly  in  the  right  spirit.  As  to 
themselves,  they  do  not  expect  to  make  money; 
they  repelled  the  insinuation  with  some  warmth; 
they  have  had,  in  fact,  a  very  hard  struggle,  and 
are  thankful  for  a  fair  measure  of  success.  Their 
sole  present  purpose  is  evidently  to  redeem  and 
reclaim  the  land,  and  make  it  fit  for  the  expected 
day  of  jubilee.  The  Jews  from  all  parts  of  the 
world,  they  say,  are  to  return  to  Palestine,  and 
there  is  to  issue  out  of  the  Holy  Land  a  new  divine 
impulse  which  is  to  be  the  regeneration  and  salva- 
tion of  the  world.  I  do  not  know  that  anybody  but 
the  Jews  themselves  would  oppose  their  migration 
to  Palestine,  though  their  withdrawal  from  the 
business  of  the  world  suddenly  would  create  wide 
disaster.  With  these  doubts,  however,  we  did  not 
trouble  the  youthful  knight  of  severity.  We  only 
asked  him  upon  what  the  community  founded  its 
creed  and  its  mission.  Largely,  he  replied,  upon 


AN   EARLY   POLYGLOT  13 

the  prophets,  and  especially  upon  Isaiah;  and  he 
referred  us  to  Isaiah  xxxii.  1;  xlix.  12  et  seq.; 
and  lii.  1.  It  is  not  every  industrial  community 
that  would  flourish  on  a  charter  so  vague  as  this. 

A  lad  of  twelve  or  fourteen  was  our  guide  to 
the  Advent  settlement ;  he  was  an  early  polyglot, 
speaking,  besides  English,  French,  and  German, 
Arabic,  and,  I  think,  a  little  Greek ;  a  boy  of  un- 
common gravity  of  deportment  and  of  precocious 
shrewdness.  He  is  destined  to  be  a  guide  and 
dragoman.  I  could  see  that  the  whole  Biblical 
history  was  a  little  fade  to  him,  but  he  does  not 
lose  sight  of  the  profit  of  a  knowledge  of  it.  I 
could  not  but  contrast  him  with  a  Sunday-school 
scholar  of  his  own  age  in  America,  whose  imagi- 
nation kindles  at  the  Old  Testament  stories,  and 
whose  enthusiasm  for  the  Holy  Land  is  awakened 
by  the  wall  maps  and  the  pictures  of  Solomon's 
Temple.  Actual  contact  has  destroyed  the  imagi- 
nation of  this  boy;  Jerusalem  is  not  so  much  a 
wonder  to  him  as  Boston;  Samson  lived  just  over 
there  beyond  the  Plain  of  Sharon,  and  is  not  so 
much  a  hero  as  Old  Put. 

The  boy's  mother  was  a  good  New  Hampshire 
woman,  whose  downright  Yankeeism  of  thought 
and  speech  was  an  odd  contrast  to  her  Oriental  sur- 
roundings. I  sat  in  a  rocking-chair  in  the  sitting- 
room  of  her  little  wood  cottage,  and  could  scarcely 
convince  myself  that  I  was  not  in  a  prim  New 
Hampshire  parlor.  To  her  mind  there  were  no 
more  Oriental  illusions,  and  perhaps  she  had  never 
indulged  any ;  certainly,  in  her  presence  Palestine 
seemed  to  me  as  commonplace  as  New  England. 


14  FROM   JAFFA   TO   JERUSALEM 

"I  s'pose  you  've  seen  the  meetin'  house?  " 

"Yes." 

"Wai,  it's  goin'  to  rack  and  ruin  like  every- 
thing else  here.  There  is  n't  enough  here  to  have 
any  service  now.  Sometimes  I  go  to  the  German ; 
I  try  to  keep  up  a  little  feeling." 

I  have  no  doubt  it  is  more  difficult  to  keep  up 
a  religious  feeling  in  the  Holy  Land  than  it  is  in 
New  Hampshire,  but  we  did  not  discuss  that  point. 
I  asked,  "Do  you  have  any  society?  " 

"Precious  little.  The  Germans  are  dreffle  un- 
social. The  natives  are  all  a  low  set.  The  Arabs 
will  all  lie;  I  don't  think  much  of  any  of  'em. 
The  Mohammedans  are  all  shiftless;  you  can't 
trust  any  of  'em." 

"Why  don't  you  go  home?  " 

"  Wai,  sometimes  I  think  I  'd  like  to  see  the 
old  place,  but  I  reckon  I  could  n't  stand  the  win- 
ters. This  is  a  nice  climate,  that 's  all  there  is 
here ;  and  we  have  grapes  and  oranges,  and  loads 
of  flowers,  —  you  see  my  garden  there ;  I  set  great 
store  by  that,  and  me  and  my  daughter  take  solid 
comfort  in  it,  especially  when  he  is  away,  and  he 
has  to  be  off  most  of  the  time  with  parties,  guidin' 
'em  round.  No,  I  guess  1  sha'n't  ever  cross  the 
ocean  again." 

It  appeared  that  the  good  woman  had  consoled 
herself  with  a  second  husband,  who  bears  a  Jewish 
name;  so  that  the  original  object  of  her  mission, 
to  gather  in  the  chosen  people,  is  not  altogether 
lost  sight  of. 

There  is  a  curious  interest  in  these  New  England 


NEW   ENGLAND   IN   THE   ORIENT  15 

transplantations.  Climate  is  a  great  transformer. 
The  habits  and  customs  of  thousands  of  years  will 
insensibly  conquer  the  most  stubborn  prejudices. 
I  wonder  how  long  it  will  require  to  blend  these 
scions  of  our  vigorous  civilization  with  the  motley 
growth  that  makes  up  the  present  Syriac  popu- 
lation, —  people  whose  blood  is  streaked  with  a 
dozen  different  strains,  Egyptian,  Ethiopian,  Ara- 
bian, Assyrian,  Phosnician,  Greek,  Roman,  Ca- 
naanite,  Jewish,  Persian,  Turkish,  with  all  the  races 
that  have  in  turn  ravaged  or  occupied  the  land. 
I  do  not,  indeed,  presume  to  say  what  the  Syrians 
are  who  have  occupied  Palestine  for  so  many  hun- 
dreds of  years,  but  I  cannot  see  how  it  can  be 
otherwise  than  that  their  blood  is  as  mixed  as  that 
of  the  modern  Egyptians.  Perhaps  these  New 
England  offshoots  will  maintain  their  distinction 
of  race  for  a  long  time,  but  I  should  be  still  more 
interested  to  know  how  long  the  New  England 
mind  will  keep  its  integrity  in  these  surroundings, 
and  whether  those  ruggednesses  of  virtue  and  those 
homely  simplicities  of  character  which  we  recog- 
nize as  belonging  to  the  hilly  portions  of  New  Eng- 
land will  insensibly  melt  away  in  this  relaxing  air 
that  so  much  wants  moral  tone.  These  Oriental 
countries  have  been  conquered  many  times,  but 
they  have  always  conquered  their  conquerors.  I 
am  told  that  even  our  American  consuls  are  not 
always  more  successful  in  resisting  the  undermin- 
ing seductions  of  the  East  than  were  the  Roman 
proconsuls. 

These   reflections,  however,  let  it  be  confessed, 


16  FROM   JAFFA   TO   JERUSALEM 

did  not  come  to  me  as  I  sat  in  the  rocking-chair 
of  my  countrywoman.  I  was  rather  thinking  how 
completely  her  presence  and  accent  dispelled  all 
my  Oriental  illusions  and  cheapened  the  associa- 
tions of  Jaffa.  There  is  I  know  not  what  in  a  real 
living  Yankee  that  puts  all  appearances  to  the  test 
and  dissipates  the  colors  of  romance.  It  was  not 
until  I  came  again  into  the  highway,  and  found  in 
front  of  The  Jerusalem  hotel  a  company  of  Arab 
acrobats  and  pyramid-builders,  their  swarthy  bodies 
shining  in  the  white  sunlight,  and  a  lot  of  idlers 
squatting  about  in  enjoyment  of  the  exertions  of 
others,  that  I  recovered  in  any  degree  my  delu- 
sions. 

With  the  return  of  these,  it  seemed  not  so  im- 
possible to  believe  even  in  the  return  of  the  Jews; 
especially  when  we  learned  that  preparations  for 
them  multiply.  A  second  German  colony  has 
been  established  outside  of  the  city.  There  is  an- 
other at  Haifa;  on  the  Jerusalem  road  the  begin- 
ning of  one  has  been  made  by  the  Jews  themselves. 
It  amounts  to  something  like  a  "movement." 

At  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  we  set  out  for 
Ramleh,  ignominously,  in  a  wagon.  There  is  a 
carriage -road  from  Jaffa  to  Jerusalem,  and  our 
dragoman  had  promised  us  a  "private  carriage." 
We  decided  to  take  it,  thinking;  it  would  be  more 

o 

comfortable  than  horseback  for  some  of  our  party. 
We  made  a  mistake,  which  we  have  never  ceased 
to  regret.  The  road  I  can  confidently  commend 
as  the  worst  in  the  world.  The  carriage  into 
which  we  climbed  belonged  to  the  German  colony, 


THE   PLAIN    OF    SHARON  17 

and  was  a  compromise  between  the  ancient  ark,  a 
modern  dray,  and  a  threshing-machine.  It  was 
one  of  those  contrivances  that  a  German  would 
evolve  out  of  his  inner  consciousness,  and  its  ap- 
pearance here  gave  me  grave  doubts  as  to  the 
adaptability  of  these  honest  Germans  to  the  Orient. 
It  was,  however,  a  great  deal  worse  than  it  looked. 
If  it  were  driven  over  smooth  ground  it  would  soon 
loosen  all  the  teeth  of  the  passengers,  and  shatter 
their  spinal  columns.  But  over  the  Jerusalem 
road  the  effect  was  indescribable.  The  noise  of  it 
was  intolerable,  the  jolting  incredible.  The  little 
solid  Dutchman,  who  sat  in  front  and  drove,  shook 
like  the  charioteer  of  an  artillery  wagon;  but  I 
suppose  he  had  no  feeling.  We  pounded  along- 
over  the  roughest  stone  pavement,  with  the  sensa- 
tion of  victims  drawn  to  execution  in  a  cart,  until 
we  emerged  into  the  open  country;  but  there  we 
found  no  improvement  in  the  road. 

Jaffa  is  surrounded  by  immense  orange  groves, 
which  are  protected  along  the  highways  by  hedges 
of  prickly-pear.  We  came  out  from  a  lane  of 
these  upon  the  level  and  blooming  Plain  of  Sharon, 
and  saw  before  us,  on  the  left,  the  blue  hills  of 
Judaea.  It  makes  little  difference  what  kind  of 
conveyance  one  has,  it  is  impossible  for  him  to  ad- 
vance upon  this  historic,  if  not  sacred  plain,  and 
catch  the  first  glimpse  of  those  pale  hills  which 
stood  to  him  for  a  celestial  vision  in  his  childhood, 
without  a  great  quickening  of  the  pulse ;  and  it  is 
a  most  lovely  view  after  Egypt,  or  after  anything. 
The  elements  of  it  are  simple  enough,  —  merely  a 


18  FROM   JAFFA   TO    JERUSALEM 

wide  sweep  of  prairie  and  a  line  of  graceful  moun- 
tains; but  the  forms  are  pleasing,  and  the  color 
is  incomparable.  The  soil  is  warm  and  red,  the 
fields  are  a  mass  of  wild -flowers  of  the  most  bril- 
liant and  variegated  hues,  and,  alternately  swept 
by  the  shadows  of  clouds  and  bathed  in  the  sun, 
the  scene  takes  on  the  animation  of  incessant 
change. 

It  was  somewhere  here,  outside  the  walls,  I  do 
not  know  the  spot,  that  the  massacre  of  Jaffa  oc- 
curred. I  purposely  go  out  of  my  way  to  repeat 
the  well-known  story  of  it,  and  I  trust  that  it  will 
always  be  recalled  whenever  any  mention  is  made 
of  the  cruel  little  Corsican  who  so  long  imposed 
the  vulgarity  and  savageness  of  his  selfish  nature 
upon  Europe.  It  was  in  March,  1799,  that  Na- 
poleon, toward  the  close  of  his  humiliating  and 
disastrous  campaign  in  Egypt,  carried  Jaffa  by 
storm.  The  town  was  given  over  to  pillage.  Dur- 
ing its  progress  four  thousand  Albanians  of  the 
garrison,  taking  refuge  in  some  old  khans,  offered 
to  surrender  on  condition  that  their  lives  should 
be  spared ;  otherwise  they  would  fight  to  the  bitter 
end.  Their  terms  were  accepted,  and  two  of  Na- 
poleon's aids-de-camp  pledged  their  honor  for  their 
safety.  They  were  inarched  out  to  the  general's 
headquarters  and  seated  in  front  of  the  tents  with 
their  arms  bound  behind  them.  The  displeased 
commander  called  a  council  of  war  and  deliberated 
two  days  upon  their  fate,  and  then  signed  the  or- 
der for  the  massacre  of  the  entire  body.  The  ex- 
cuse was  that  the  general  could  not  be  burdened 


SPRINGTIME    IN   THE   HOLY   LAND  19 

with  so  many  prisoners.  Thus  in  one  day  were 
murdered  in  cold  blood  about  as  many  people  as 
Jaffa  at  present  contains.  Its  inhabitants  may  be 
said  to  have  been  accustomed  to  being  massacred; 
eight  thousand  of  them  were  butchered  in  one  Ro- 
man assault;  but  I  suppose  all  antiquity  may  be 
searched  in  vain  for  an  act  of  perfidy  and  cruelty 
combined  equal  to  that  of  the  Grand  Emperor. 

The  road  over  which  we  rattle  is  a  causeway  of 
loose  stones;  the  country  is  a  plain  of  sand,  but 
clothed  with  a  luxuriant  vegetation.  In  the  fields 
the  brown  husbandmen  are  ploughing,  turning  up 
the  soft  red  earth  with  a  rude  plough  drawn  by 
cattle  yoked  wide  apart.  Red-legged  storks,  on 
their  way,  I  suppose,  from  Egypt  to  their  summer 
residence  further  north,  dot  the  meadows,  and  are 
too  busy  picking  up  worms  to  notice  our  halloo. 
Abd-el-Atti,  who  has  a  passion  for  shooting,  begs 
permission  to  "go  for"  these  household  birds  with 
the  gun ;  but  we  explain  to  him  that  we  would  no 
more  shoot  a  stork  than  one  of  the  green  birds  of 
Paradise.  Quails  are  scudding  about  in  the  newly 
turned  furrows,  and  song  birds  salute  us  from  the 
tops  of  swinging  cypresses.  The  Holy  Land  is 
rejoicing  in  its  one  season  of  beauty,  its  spring- 
time. 

Trees  are  not  wanting  to  the  verdant  meadows. 
\Ve  still  encounter  an  occasional  grove  of  oranges ; 
alives  also  appear,  and  acacias,  sycamores,  cy- 
presses, and  tamarisks.  The  pods  of  the  carob- 
tree  are,  I  believe,  the  husks  upon  which  the  prod- 
igal son  did  not  thrive.  Large  patches  of  barley 


20  FROM    JAFFA   TO    JERUSALEM 

are  passed.  But  the  fields  not  occupied  with 
grain  are  literally  carpeted  with  wild-flowers  of  the 
most  brilliant  hues,  such  a  display  as  I  never  saw 
elsewhere:  scarlet  and  dark  flaming  poppies,  the 
scarlet  anemone,  marigolds,  white  daisies,  the 
lobelia,  the  lupin,  the  vetch,  the  gorse  with  its 
delicate  yellow  blossom,  the  pea,  something  that 
we  agreed  to  call  the  white  rose  of  Sharon,  the 
mallow,  the  asphodel;  the  leaves  of  a  lily  not  yet 
in  bloom.  About  the  rose  of  Sharon  we  no  doubt 
were  mistaken.  There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  it 
was  white;  but  we  have  somehow  associated  the 
purity  of  that  color  with  the  song  beginning,  "I 
am  the  rose  of  Sharon  and  the  lily  of  the  valleys." 
It  was  probably  not  even  a  rose.  We  finally  de- 
cided to  cherish  the  red  mallow  as  the  rose  of 
Sharon;  it  is  very  abundant,  and  the  botanist  of 
our  company  seemed  satisfied  to  accept  it.  For 
myself,  the  rose  by  the  name  of  mallow  does  not 
smell  sweet. 

We  come  in  sight  of  Ramleh,  which  lies  on  the 
swelling  mounds  of  the  green  plain,  encompassed 
by  emerald  meadows  and  by  groves  of  orange  and 
olive,  and  conspicuous  from  a  great  distance  by 
its  elegant  square  tower,  the  most  beautiful  in  form 
that  we  have  seen  in  the  East.  As  the  sun  is  sink- 
ing, we  defer  our  visit  to  it,  and  drive  to  the 
Latin  convent,  where  we  are  to  lodge,  permission 
to  that  effect  having  been  obtained  from  the  sister 
convent  at  Jaffa ;  a  mere  form,  since  a  part  of  the 
convent  was  built  expressly  for  the  entertainment 
of  travelers,  and  the  few  monks  who  occupy  it  find 


THE   CONVENT    OF    RAMLEH  21 

keeping  a  hotel  a  very  profitable  kind  of  hospital- 
ity. The  stranger  is  the  guest  of  the  superior,  no 
charge  is  made,  and  the  little  fiction  of  gratuitous 
hospitality  so  pleases  the  pilgrim  that  he  will  not 
at  his  departure  be  outdone  in  liberality.  It  would 
be  much  more  agreeable  if  all  our  hotels  were  upon 
this  system. 

While  the  dragoman  is  unpacking  the  luggage 
in  the  court-yard  and  bustling  about  in  a  manner 
to  impress  the  establishment  with  the  importance 
of  its  accession,  I  climb  up  to  the  roofs  to  get  the 
sunset.  The  house  is  all  roofs,  it  would  seem,  at 
different  levels.  Steps  lead  here  and  there,  and 
one  can  wander  about  at  will ;  you  could  not  desire 
a  pleasanter  lounging-place  in  a  summer  evening. 
The  protecting  walls,  which  are  breast-high,  are 
built  in  with  cylinders  of  tile,  like  the  mud  houses 
in  Egypt;  the  tiles  make  the  walls  lighter,  and 
furnish  at  the  same  time  peep-holes  through  which 
the  monks  can  spy  the  world,  themselves  unseen. 
I  noticed  that  the  tiles  about  the  entrance  court 
were  inclined  downwards,  so  that  a  curious  person 
could  study  any  new  arrival  at  the  convent  without 
being  himself  observed.  The  sun  went  down  be- 
hind the  square  tower  which  is  called  Saracenic 
and  is  entirely  Gothic  in  spirit,  and  the  light  lay 
soft  and  rosy  on  the  wide  compass  of  green  vege- 
tation ;  I  heard  on  the  distant  fields  the  bells  of 
mules  returning  to  the  gates,  and  the  sound  substi- 
tuted Italy  in  my  mind  for  Palestine. 

From  this  prospect  I  was  summoned  in  haste; 
the  superior  of  the  convent  was  waiting  to  receive 


22  FROM   JAFFA   TO    JERUSALEM 

me,  and  I  had  been  sought  in  all  directions.  I  had 
no  idea  why  I  should  be  received,  but  I  soon  found 
that  the  occasion  was  not  a  trivial  one.  In  the 
reception-room  were  seated  in  some  state  the  su- 
perior, attended  by  two  or  three  brothers,  and  the 
remainder  of  my  suite  already  assembled.  The 
abbot,  if  he  is  an  abbot,  arose  and  cordially  wel- 
comed "the  general "  to  his  humble  establishment, 
hoped  that  he  was  not  fatigued  by  the  journey  from 
Jaffa,  and  gave  him  a  seat  beside  himself.  The 
remainder  of  the  party  were  ranged  according  to 
their  rank.  I  replied  that  the  journey  was  on  the 
contrary  delightful,  and  that  any  journey  could  be 
considered  fortunate  which  had  the  hospitable  con- 
vent of  Ramleh  as  its  end.  The  courteous  monk 
renewed  his  solicitous  inquiries,  and  my  astonish- 
ment was  increased  by  the  botanist,  who  gravely 
assured  the  worthy  father  that  "the  general"  was 
accustomed  to  fatigue,  and  that  such  a  journey  as 
this  was  a  recreation  to  him. 

"What  in  the  mischief  is  all  this  about?"I 
seized  a  moment  to  whisper  to  the  person  next  me. 

"You  are  a  distinguished  American  general, 
traveling  with  his  lady  in  pursuit  of  Heaven  knows 
what,  and  accompanied  by  his  suite;  don't  make  a 
mess  of  it." 

"Oh,"  I  said,  "if  I  am  a  distinguished  Ameri- 
can general,  traveling  with  my  lady  in  pursuit  of 
Heaven  knows  what,  I  am  glad  to  know  it." 

Fortunately  the  peaceful  father  did  not  know 
anything  more  of  war  than  I  did,  and  I  suppose 
my  hastily  assumed  modesty  of  the  soldier  seemed 


A    DISTINGUISHED    AMERICAN    GENERAL,        23 

to  him  the  real  thing1.  It  was  my  first  experience 
of  anything  like  real  war,  the  first  time  I  had  ever 
occupied  any  military  position,  and  it  did  not  seem 
to  be  so  arduous  as  has  been  represented. 

Great  regret  was  expressed  by  the  superior  that 
they  had  not  anticipated  my  arrival,  in  order  to 
have  entertained  me  in  a  more  worthy  manner ;  the 
convent  was  uncommonly  full  of  pilgrims,  and  it 
would  be  difficult  to  lodge  my  suite  as  it  deserved. 
Then  there  followed  a  long  discussion  between  the 
father  and  one  of  the  monks  upon  our  disposition 
for  the  night. 

"If  we  give  the  general  and  his  lady  the  south 
room  in  the  court,  then  the  doctor  "  —etc.,  etc. 

"Or,"  urged  the  monk,  "suppose  the  general 
and  his  lady  occupy  the  cell  number  four,  then 
mademoiselle  can  take  "  —etc.,  etc. 

The  military  commander  and  his  lady  were  at 
last  shown  into  a  cell  opening  out  of  the  court,  a 
lofty  but  narrow  vaulted  room,  with  brick  floor 
and  thick  walls,  and  one  small  window  near  the 
ceiling.  Instead  of  candles  we  had  antique  Roman 
lamps,  which  made  a  feeble  glimmer  in  the  cav- 
ern ;  the  oddest  water- jugs  served  for  pitchers. 
It  may  not  have  been  damp,  but  it  felt  as  if  no 
sun  had  ever  penetrated  the  chill  interior. 

"What  is  all  this  nonsense  of  the  general?''  I 
asked  Abd-el-Atti,  as  soon  as  I  could  get  hold  of 
that  managing  factotum. 

"  Dunno,  be  sure ;  these  monk  always  pay  more 
attention  to  'stinguish  people." 

"But  what  did  you  say  at  the  convent  in  Jaffa 
when  you  applied  for  a  permit  to  lodge  here  ?  " 


24  FROM   JAFFA    TO    JERUSALEM 

"Oh,  I  tell  him  my  gentleman  general  Ameri- 
can, but  'stinguish;  mebbe  he  done  gone  wrote 
'em  that  you  'stinguish  American  general.  Very 
nice  man,  the  superior,  speak  Italian  beautiful; 
when  I  give  him  the  letter,  he  say  he  do  all  he  can 
for  the  general  and  his  suite;  he  sorry  I  not  let 
him  know  'forehand." 

The  dinner  was  served  in  the  long  refectory, 
and  there  were  some  twenty-five  persons  at  table, 
mostly  pilgrims  to  Jerusalem,  and  most  of  them  of 
the  poorer  class.  One  bright  Italian  had  traveled 
alone  with  her  little  boy  all  the  way  from  Verona, 
only  to  see  the  Holy  Sepulchre.  The  monks 
waited  at  table  and  served  a  very  good  dinner. 
Travelers  are  not  permitted  to  enter  the  portion  of 
the  large  convent  which  contains  the  cells  of  the 
monks,  nor  to  visit  any  part  of  the  old  building 
except  the  chapel.  I  fancied  that  the  jolly  bro- 
thers who  waited  at  table  were  rather  glad  to  come 
into  contact  with  the  world,  even  in  this  capacity. 

In  the  dining-room  hangs  a  notable  picture.  It 
is  the  Virgin  enthroned,  with  a  crown  and  aureole, 
holding  the  holy  child,  who  is  also  crowned;  in 
the  foreground  is  a  choir  of  white  boys  or  angels. 
The  Virgin  and  child  are  both  black :  it  is  the  Vir- 
gin of  Ethiopia.  I  could  not  learn  the  origin  of 
this  picture ;  it  was  rude  enough  in  execution  to  be 
the  work  of  a  Greek  artist  of  the  present  day ;  but 
it  was  said  to  come  from  Ethiopia,  where  it  is  ne- 
cessary to  a  proper  respect  for  the  Virgin  that  she 
should  be  represented  black.  She  seems  to  bear 
something  the  relation  to  the  Virgin  of  Judaea  that 


THE   VIRGIN   OF   ETHIOPIA  2o 

Astarte  did  to  the  Grecian  Venus.  And  we  are 
again  reminded  that  the  East  has  no  prejudice  of 
color :  "  I  am  black  but  comely,  O  ye  daughters  of 
Jerusalem;"  "Look  not  upon  me  because  I  am 
black,  because  the  sun  hath  looked  upon  me." 

The  convent  bells  are  ringing  at  early  dawn, 
and  though  we  are  up  at  half  past  five,  nearly  all 
the  pilgrims  have  hastily  departed  for  Jerusalem. 
Upon  the  roof  I  find  the  morning  fair.  There  are 
more  minarets  than  spires  in  sight,  but  they  stand 
together  in  this  pretty  little  town  without  discord. 
The  bells  are  ringing  in  melodious  persuasion,  but 
at  the  same  time,  in  voices  as  musical,  the  muez- 
zins are  calling  from  their  galleries ;  each  summon- 
ing men  to  prayer  in  its  own  way.  From  these 
walls  spectators  once  looked  down  upon  the  battles 
of  cross  and  crescent  raging  in  the  lovely  mead- 
ows, —  battles  of  quite  as  much  pride  as  piety.  A 
common  interest  always  softens  animosity,  and  I 
fancy  that  monks  and  Moslems  will  not  again  re- 
sort to  the  foolish  practice  of  breaking  each  other's 
heads  so  long  as  they  enjoy  the  profitable  stream 
of  pilgrims  to  the  Holy  Land. 

After  breakfast  and  a  gift  to  the  treasury  of  the 
convent  according  to  our  rank,  —  I  think  if  I  were 
to  stay  there  again  it  would  be  in  the  character  of 
a  common  soldier,  —  we  embarked  again  in  the 
ark,  and  jolted  along  behind  the  square-shouldered 
driver,  who  seemed  to  enjoy  the  rattling  and  rum- 
bling of  his  clumsy  vehicle.  But  no  minor  infe- 
licity could  destroy  for  us  the  freshness  of  the 
morning  or  the  enjoyment  of  the  lovely  country. 


26  FROM   JAFFA   TO   JERUSALEM 

Although,  in  the  jolting,  one  could  not  utter  a  re- 
mark about  the  beauty  of  the  way  without  danger 
of  biting  his  tongue  in  two,  we  feasted  our  eyes 
and  let  our  imaginations  loose  over  the  vast  ranges 
of  the  Old  Testament  story. 

After  passing  through  the  fertile  meadows  of 
Ramleh,  we  came  into  a  more  rolling  country, 
destitute  of  houses,  but  clothed  on  with  a  most 
brilliant  bloom  of  wild -flowers,  among  which  the 
papilionaceous  flowers  were  conspicuous  for  color 
and  delicacy.  I  found  by  the  roadside  a  black 
calla  (which  I  should  no  more  have  believed  in 
than  in  the  black  Virgin,  if  I  had  not  seen  it).  Its 
leaf  is  exactly  that  of  our  calla-lily ;  its  flower  is 
similar  to,  but  not  so  open  and  flaring  as  the  white 
calla,  and  the  pistil  is  large  and  very  long,  and  of 
the  color  of  the  interior  of  the  flower.  The  corolla 
is  green  on  the  outside,  but  the  inside  is  incompar- 
ably rich,  like  velvet,  black  in  some  lights  and 
dark  maroon  in  others.  Nothing  could  be  finer  in 
color  and  texture  than  this  superb  flower.  Be- 
sides the  blooms  of  yesterday  we  noticed  butter- 
cups, various  sorts  of  the  ranunculus,  among  them 
the  scarlet  and  the  shooting-star,  a  light  purple 
flower  with  a  dark  purple  centre,  the  Star  of  Beth- 
lehem, and  the  purple  wind-flower.  Scarlet  pop- 
pies and  the  still  more  brilliant  scarlet  anemones, 
dandelions,  marguerites,  filled  all  the  fields  with 
masses  of  color. 

Shortly  we  come  into  the  hills,  through  which 
the  road  winds  upward,  and  the  scenery  is  very 
much  like  that  of  the  Adirondacks,  or  would  be  if 


CONSECRATED   GROUND  27 

the  rocky  hills  of  the  latter  were  denuded  of  trees. 
The  way  begins  to  be  lively  with  passengers,  and 
it  becomes  us  to  be  circumspect,  for  almost  every 
foot  of  ground  has  been  consecrated  or  desecrated, 
or  in  some  manner  made  memorable.  This  heap  oi 
rubbish  is  the  remains  of  a  fortress  which  the  Sar- 
acens captured,  built  by  the  Crusaders  to  guard 
the  entrance  of  the  pass,  upon  the  site  of  an  older 
fortification  by  the  Maccabees,  or  founded  upon 
Roman  substructions,  and  mentioned  in  Judges  as 
the  spot  whore  some  very  ancient  Jew  stayed  over 
night.  It  is  also,  no  doubt,  one  of  the  stations 
that  help  us  to  determine  with  the  accuracy  of  a 
surveyor  the  boundary  between  the  territory  of 
Benjamin  and  Judah.  I  try  to  ascertain  all  these 
localities  and  to  remember  them  all,  but  I  some- 
times get  Richard  Cffiur  de  Lion  mixed  with  Jon- 
athan Maccabseus,  and  I  have  no  doubt  I  mistook 
"Job's  convent "  for  the  Castellum  boni  Latronis, 
a  place  we  were  specially  desirous  to  see  as  the 
birthplace  of  the  "penitent  thief."  But  whatever 
we  confounded,  we  are  certain  of  one  thing  :  we 
looked  over  into  the  Valley  of  Ajalon.  It  was 
over  this  valley  that  Joshua  commanded  the  moon 
to  tarry  while  he  smote  the  fugitive  Amorites  on 
the  heights  of  Gibeon,  there  to  the  east. 

The  road  is  thronged  with  pilgrims  to  Jerusalem, 
and  with  travelers  and  their  attendants,  —  gay 
cavalcades  scattered  all  along  the  winding  way 
over  the  rolling  plain,  as  in  the  picture  of  the  Pil- 
grims to  Canterbury.  All  the  transport  of  freight 
as  well  as  passengers  is  by  the  backs  of  beasts  of 


28  FROM   JAFFA   TO    JERUSALEM 

burden.  There  are  long  files  of  horses  and  mules 
staggering  under  enormous  loads  of  trunks,  tents, 
and  bags.  Dragomans,  some  of  them  got  up  in 
fierce  style,  with  baggy  yellow  trousers,  yellow 
kuffias  bound  about  the  head  with  a  twisted  fillet, 
armed  with  long  Damascus  swords,  their  belts 
stuck  full  of  pistols,  and  a  rifle  slung  on  the  back, 
gallop  furiously  along  the  line,  the  signs  of  danger 
but  the  assurances  of  protection.  Camp  boys  and 
waiters  dash  along  also,  on  the  pack-horses,  with 
a  great  clatter  of  kitchen  furniture ;  even  a  scullion 
has  an  air  of  adventure  as  he  pounds  his  rack-a- 
bone  steed  into  a  vicious  gallop.  And  there  are 
the  Cook's  tourists,  called  by  everybody  "Cookies," 
men  and  women  struggling  on  according  to  the 
pace  of  their  horses,  conspicuous  in  hats  with  white 
muslin  drapery  hanging  over  the  neck.  Villainous- 
looking  fellows  with  or  without  long  guns,  coming 
and  going  on  the  highway,  have  the  air  of  being 
neither  pilgrims  nor  strangers.  We  meet  women 
returning  from  Jerusalem  clad  in  white,  seated 
astride  their  horses,  or  upon  beds  which  top  their 
multifarious  baggage. 

We  are  leaving  behind  us  on  the  right  the  coun- 
try of  Samson,  in  which  he  passed  his  playful  and 
engaging  boyhood,  and  we  look  wistfully  towards  it. 
Of  Zorah,  where  he  was  born,  nothing  is  left  but 
a  cistern,  and  there  is  only  a  wretched  hamlet  to 
mark  the  site  of  Timnath,  where  he  got  his  Phi- 
listine wife.  "Get  her  for  me,  for  she  pleaseth 
me  well,"  was  his  only  reply  to  the  entreaty  of  his 
father  that  he  would  be  content  with  a  maid  of 
his  own  people. 


A  WILD  AND  ROCKY  COUNTRY       29 

The  country  gets  wilder  and  more  rocky  as 
we  ascend.  Down  the  ragged  side  paths  come 
wretched  women  and  girls,  staggering  under  the 
loads  of  brushwood  which  they  have  cut  in  the  high 
ravines ;  loads  borne  upon  the  head  that  would  tax 
the  strength  of  a  strong  man.  I  found  it  no  easy 
task  to  lift  one  of  the  bundles.  The  poor  creatures 
were  scantily  clad  in  a  single  garment  of  coarse 
brown  cloth,  but  most  of  them  wore  a  profusion  of 
ornaments;  strings  of  coins,  Turkish  and  Arabic, 
on  the  head  and  breast,  and  uncouth  rings  and 
bracelets.  Farther  on  a  rabble  of  boys  besets  us, 
begging  for  backsheesh  in  piteous  and  whining 
tones,  and  throwing  up  their  arms  in  theatrical 
gestures  of  despair. 

All  the  hills  bear  marks  of  having  once  been 
terraced  to  the  very  tops,  for  vines  and  olives. 
The  natural  ledges  seem  to  have  been  humored  into 
terraces  and  occasionally  built  up  and  broadened 
by  stone  walls;  but  where  the  hill  was  smooth, 
traces  of  terraces  are  yet  visible.  The  grape  is 
still  cultivated  low  down  the  steeps,  and  the  olives 
straggle  over  some  of  the  hills  to  the  very  top ;  but 
these  feeble  efforts  of  culture  or  of  nature  do  little 
to  relieve  the  deserted  aspect  of  the  scene. 

We  lunch  in  a  pretty  olive  grove,  upon  a  slope 
long  ago  terraced  and  now  grass-grown  and  flower- 
sown;  lovely  vistas  open  into  cool  glades,  and 
paths  lead  upward  among  the  rocks  to  inviting  re- 
treats. From  this  high  perch  in  the  bosom  of  the 
hills  we  look  off  upon  Kamleli,  Jaffa,  the  broad 
Plain  of  Sharon,  and  the  sea.  A  strip  of  sand  be- 


30 

tween  the  sea  and  the  plain  produces  the  effect  of 
a  mirage,  giving  to  the  plain  the  appearance  of  the 
sea.  It  would  be  a  charming  spot  for  a  country- 
seat  for  a  resident  of  Jerusalem,  although  Jerusa- 
lem itself  is  rural  enough  at  present;  and  David 
and  Solomon  may  have  had  summer  pavilions  in 
these  cool  shades  in  sight  of  the  Mediterranean. 
David  himself,  however,  perhaps  had  enough  of 
this  region  —  when  he  dodged  about  in  these  fast- 
nesses between  Ramah  and  Gath,  from  the  pursuit 
of  Saul  —  to  make  him  content  with  a  city  life. 
There  is  nothing  to  hinder  our  believing  that  he 
often  enjoyed  this  prospect;  and  we  do  believe  it, 
for  it  is  already  evident  that  the  imagination  must 
be  called  in  to  create  an  enjoyment  of  this  deserted 
land.  David  no  doubt  loved  this  spot.  For 
David  was  a  poet,  even  at  this  early  period  when 
his  occupation  was  that  of  a  successful  guerilla ;  and 
he  had  all  the  true  poet's  adaptability,  as  witness 
the  exquisite  ode  he  composed  on  the  death  of  his 
enemy  Saul.  I  have  no  doubt  that  he  enjoyed  this 
lovely  prospect  often,  for  he  was  a  man  who  en- 
joyed heartily  everything  lovely.  He  was  in  this 
as  in  all  he  did  a  thorough  man ;  when  he  made  a 
raid  on  an  Amorite  city,  he  left  neither  man, 
woman,  nor  child  alive  to  spread  the  news. 

We  have  already  mounted  over  two  thousand 
feet.  The  rocks  are  silicious  limestone,  crumbling 
and  gray  with  ages  of  exposure;  they  give  the 
landscape  an  ashy  appearance.  But  there  is  al- 
ways a  little  verdure  amid  the  rocks,  and  now 
and  then  an  olive-tree,  perhaps  a  very  old  one, 


ABU    GHAUSH  31 

decrepit  and  twisted  into  the  most  fantastic  form, 
as  if  distorted  by  a  vegetable  rheumatism,  casting 
abroad  its  withered  arms  as  if  the  tree  writhed  in 
pain.  On  such  ghostly  trees  I  have  no  doubt  the 
five  kings  were  hanged.  Another  tree  or  rather 
shrub  is  abundant,  the  dwarf -oak;  and  the  haw- 
thorn, now  in  blossom,  is  frequently  seen.  The 
rock-rose  —  a  delicate  white  single  flower  —  blooms 
by  the  wayside  and  amid  the  ledges,  and  the  scar- 
let anemone  flames  out  more  brilliantly  than  ever. 
Nothing  indeed  could  be  more  beautiful  than  the 
contrast  of  the  clusters  of  scarlet  anemones  and 
white  roses  with  the  gray  rocks. 

We  soon  descend  into  a  valley  and  reach  the  site 
of  Kirjath-Jearim,  which  has  not  much  ancient  in- 
terest for  me,  except  that  the  name  is  pleasing;  but 
on  the  other  side  of  the  stream  and  opposite  a  Mos- 
lem fountain  are  the  gloomy  stone  habitations  of 
the  family  of  the  terrible  Abu  Ghaush,  whose  rob- 
beries of  travelers  kept  the  whole  country  in  a 
panic  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago.  He  held  the  key 
of  this  pass,  and  let  no  one  go  by  without  toll. 
For  fifty  years  he  and  his  companions  defied  the 
Turkish  government,  and  even  went  to  the  extrem- 
ity of  murdering  two  pashas  who  attempted  to  pass 
this  way.  He  was  disposed  of  in  184G,  but  his 
descendants  still  live  here,  having  the  inclination 
but  not  tli:1  courage  of  the  old  chief.  We  did  not 
encounter  any  of  them,  but  I  have  never  seen  any 
buildings  that  have  such  a  wicked  physiognomy  as 
their  grim  houses. 

Near   by   is    the    ruin    of    a    low,    thick-walled 


32  FROM    JAFFA   TO   JERUSALEM 

chapel,  of  a  pure  Gothic  style,  a  remnant  of  the 
Crusaders'  occupation.  The  gloomy  wady  has 
another  association :  a  monkish  tradition  would 
have  us  believe  it  was  the  birthplace  of  Jeremiah ; 
if  the  prophet  was  born  in  such  a  hard  country  it 
might  account  for  his  lamentations.  As  we  pass 
out  of  this  wady,  the  German  driver  points  to  a 
forlorn  village  clinging  to  the  rocky  slope  of  a  hill 
to  the  right,  and  says,  — 

"That  is  where  John  Baptist  was  born." 

The  information  is  sudden  and  seems  improb- 
able, especially  as  there  are  other  places  where  he 
was  born. 

"How  do  you  know?"  we  ask. 

"  Oh,  I  know  ganz  wohl ;  I  been  five  years  in 
dis  land,  and  I  ought  to  know." 

Descending  into  a  deep  ravine  we  cross  a  brook, 
which  we  are  told  is  the  one  that  flows  into  the 
Valley  of  Elah,  the  valley  of  the  "terebinth"  or 
button-trees ;  and  if  so,  it  is  the  brook  out  of  which 
David  took  the  stone  that  killed  Goliath.  It  is  a 
bright,  dashing  stream.  I  stood  upon  the  bridge, 
watching  it  dancing  down  the  ravine,  and  should 
have  none  but  agreeable  recollections  of  it,  but 
that  close  to  the  bridge  stood  a  vile  grog-shop,  and 
in  the  doorway  sat  the  most  villainous -looking  man 
I  ever  saw  in  Juda?a,  rapacity  and  murder  in  his 
eyes.  The  present  generation  have  much  more  to 
fear  from  him  and  his  drugged  liquors  than  the 
Israelite  had  from  the  giant  of  Gath. 

While  the  wagon  zigzags  up  the  last  long  hill, 
1  mount  by  a  short  path  and  come  upon  a  rocky 


AN   ATROCIOUS   HIGHWAY  33 

plateau,  across  which  runs  a  broad  way,  on  the 
bed  rock,  worn  smooth  by  many  centuries  of 
travel :  by  the  passing  of  caravans  and  armies  to 
Jerusalem,  of  innumerable  generations  of  peasants, 
of  chariots,  of  horses,  mules,  and  foot-soldiers; 
here  went  the  messengers  of  the  king's  pleasure, 
and  here  came  the  heralds  and  legates  of  foreign 
nations;  this  great  highway  the  kings  and  pro- 
phets themselves  must  have  trodden  when  they 
journeyed  towards  the  sea;  for  I  cannot  learn  that 
the  Jews  ever  had  any  decent  roads,  and  perhaps 
they  never  attained  the  civilization  necessary  to 
build  them.  "We  have  certainly  seen  no  traces  of 
anything  like  a  practicable  ancient  highway  on  this 
route. 

Indeed,  the  greatest  wonder  to  me  in  the  whole 
East  is  that  there  has  not  been  a  good  road  built 
from  Jaffa  to  Jerusalem ;  that  the  city  sacred  to 
more  than  half  the  world,  to  all  the  most  powerful 
nations,  to  Moslems,  Jews,  Greeks,  Roman  Catho- 
lics, Protestants,  the  desire  of  all  lands,  and  the 
object  of  pilgrimage  with  the  delicate  and  the  fee- 
ble as  well  as  the  strong,  should  not  have  a  high- 
way to  it  over  which  one  can  ride  without  being 
jarred  and  stunned  and  pounded  to  a  jelly;  that 
the  Jews  should  never  have  made  a  road  to  their 
seaport;  that  the  Romans,  the  road-builders,  do 
not  seem  to  have  constructed  one  over  this  impor- 
tant route.  The  Sultan  began  this  one  over  which 
we  have  been  dragged,  for  the  Empress  Eugenie. 
But  he  did  not  finish  it;  most  of  the  way  it  is  a 
mere  rubble  of  stones.  The  track  is  well  engi- 


34  FROM   JAFFA   TO    JERUSALEM 

neered,  and  the  road  bed  is  well  enough ;  soft  stone 
is  at  hand  tp  form  an  excellent  dressing,  and  it 
might  be,  in  a  short  time,  as  good  a  highway  as 
any  in  Switzerland,  if  the  Sultan  would  set  some 
of  his  lazy  subjects  to  work  out  their  taxes  on  it. 
Of  course,  it  is  now  a  great  improvement  over 
the  old  path  for  mules;  but  as  a  carriage  road  it 
is  atrocious.  Imagine  thirty-six  miles  of  cobble 
pavement,  with  every  other  stone  gone  and  the 
remainder  sharpened  ! 

Perhaps,  however,  it  is  best  not  to  have  a  decent 
road  to  the  Holy  City  of  the  world.  It  would 
make  going  there  easy,  even  for  delicate  ladies  and 
invalid  clergymen ;  it  would  reduce  the  cost  of  the 
trip  from  Jaffa  by  two  thirds;  it  would  take  away 
employment  from  a  lot  of  vagabonds  who  harry  the 
traveler  over  the  route ;  it  would  make  the  pilgrim- 
age too  much  a  luxury,  in  these  days  of  pilgrim- 
ages by  rail,  and  of  little  faith,  or  rather  of  a  sort 
of  lacquer  of  faith  which  is  only  credulity. 

Upon  this  plateau  we  begin  to  discern  signs  of 
the  neighborhood  of  the  city,  and  we  press  forward 
with  the  utmost  eagerness,  disappointed  at  every 
turn  that  a  sight  of  it  is  not  disclosed.  Scattered 
settlements  extend  for  some  distance  out  on  the 
Jaffa  road.  We  pass  a  school  which  the  Germans 
have  established  for  Arab  boys,  —  an  institution 
which  does  not  meet  the  approval  of  our  restora- 
tion driver ;  the  boys,  when  they  come  out,  he  says, 
don't  kn^w  what  they  are;  they  are  neither  Mos- 
lems nor  Christians.  We  go  rapidly  on  over  the 
swelling  hill,  but  the  city  will  not  reveal  itself. 


JERUSALEM  35 

We  expect  it  any  moment  to  rise  up  before  us, 
conspicuous  on  its  ancient  hills,  its  walls  shining 
in  the  sun.  We  pass  a  guard-house,  some  towers, 
and  newly  built  private  residences.  Our  pulses 
are  beating  a  hundred  to  the  minute,  but  the  city 
refuses  to  ''burst"  upon  us  as  it  does  upon  other 
travelers.  We  have  advanced  far  enough  to  see 
that  there  is  no  elevation  before  us  higher  than 
that  we  are  on.  The  great  sight  of  all  our  lives 
is  only  a  moment  separated  from  us;  in  a  few 
rods  more  our  hearts  will  be  satisfied  by  that  long- 
dreamed-of  prospect.  How  many  millions  of  pil- 
grims have  hurried  along  this  road,  lifting  up  their 
eyes  in  impatience  for  the  vision!  But  it  does 
not  come  suddenly.  We  have  already  seen  it, 
when  the  driver  stops,  points  with  his  whip,  and 
cries,  — 

"JERUSALEM!" 

"What,  that?" 

We  are  above  it  and  nearly  upon  it.  What  we 
see  is  chiefly  this :  the  domes  and  long  buildings 
of  the  Russian  Hospice,  on  higher  ground  than 
the  city  and  concealing  a  good  part  of  it;  a  large 
number  of  new  houses,  built  of  limestone  prettily 
streaked  with  the  red  oxide  of  iron ;  the  roofs  of  a 
few  of  the  city  houses,  and  a  little  portion  of  the 
wall  that  overlooks  the  Valley  of  Ilinnom.  The 
remainder  of  the  City  of  David  is  visible  to  the 
imagination. 

The  suburb  through  which  we  puss  cannot  be 
called  pleasing.  Everything  outside  the  walls 
looks  new  and  naked;  the  whitish  glare  of  the 


36  FROM   JAFFA   TO    JERUSALEM 

stone  is  Believed  by  little  vegetation,  and  the  effect 
is  that  of  barrenness.  As  we  drive  down  along 
the  wall  of  the  Russian  convent,  we  begin  to  meet 
pilgrims  and  strangers,  with  whom  the  city  over- 
flows at  this  season ;  many  Russian  peasants,  un- 
kempt, unsavory  fellows,  with  long  hair  and  dirty 
apparel,  but  most  of  them  wearing  a  pelisse 
trimmed  with  fur  and  a  huge  fur  hat.  There  are 
coffee-houses  and  all  sorts  of  cheap  booths  and 
shanty  shops  along  the  highway.  The  crowd  is 
motley  and  far  from  pleasant ;  it  is  sordid,  grimy, 
hard,  very  different  from  the  more  homogeneous, 
easy,  flowing,  graceful,  and  picturesque  assemblage 
of  vagabonds  at  the  gate  of  an  Egyptian  town. 
There  are  Russians,  Cossacks,  Georgians,  Jews, 
Armenians,  Syrians.  The  northern  dirt  and 
squalor  and  fanaticism  do  not  come  gracefully  into 
the  Orient.  Besides,  the  rabble  is  importunate 
and  impudent. 

We  enter  by  the  Jaffa  and  Hebron  gate,  a  big 
square  tower,  with  the  exterior  entrance  to  the 
north  and  the  interior  to  the  east,  and  the  short 
turn  is  choked  with  camels  and  horses  and  a  clam- 
orous crowd.  Beside  it  stands  the  ruinous  citadel 
of  Saladin  and  the  Tower  of  David,  a  noble  en- 
trance to  a  mean  street.  Through  the  rush  of 
footmen  and  horsemen,  beggars,  venders  of  olive- 
wood,  Moslems,  Jews,  and  Greeks,  we  make  our 
way  to  the  Mediterranean  Hotel,  a  rambling  new 
hostelry.  In  passing  to  our  rooms  we  pause  a 
moment  upon  an  open  balcony  to  look  down  into 
the  green  Pool  of  Hezekiah,  and  off  over  the  roofs 


THE  CENTRE  OF  THE  EARTH        37 

to  the  Mount  of  Olives.  Having  secured  our 
rooms,  I  hasten  along  narrow  and  abominably  cob- 
bled streets,  mere  ditches  of  stone,  lined  with  mean 
shops,  to  the  Centre  of  the  Earth,  the  Church  of 
the  Holy  Sepulchre. 


II 


JERUSALEM 

T  was  in  obedience  to  a  natural  but 
probably  mistaken  impulse,  that  1 
went  straight  to  the  Church  of  the 
Holy  Sepulchre  during-  my  first  hour 
in  the  city.  Perhaps  it  was  a  mistake  to  go  there 
at  all ;  certainly  I  should  have  waited  until  I  had 
become  more  accustomed  to  holy  places.  When 
a  person  enters  this  memorable  church,  as  I  did, 
expecting  to  see  only  two  sacred  sites,  and  is 
brought  immediately  face  to  face  with  thirty  - 
seven,  his  mind  is  staggered,  and  his  credulity 
becomes  so  enfeebled  that  it  is  practically  useless 
to  him  thereafter  in  any  part  of  the  Holy  City. 
And  this  is  a  pity,  for  it  is  so  much  easier  and 
sweeter  to  believe  than  to  doubt. 

It  would  have  been  better,  also,  to  have  visited 
Jerusalem  many  years  ago;  then  there  were  fewer 
sacred  sites  invented,  and  scholarly  investigation 
had  not  so  sharply  questioned  the  authenticity  of 
the  fe\\  But  I  thought  of  none  of  these  things  as 
I  stumbled  along  the  narrow  and  filthy  streets, 
which  are  stony  channels  of  mud  and  water,  rather 


IMPUDENT   TRADERS  39 

than  footpaths,  and  peeped  into  the  dirty  little 
shops  that  line  the  way.  I  thought  only  that  I  was 
in  Jerusalem ;  and  it  was  impossible,  at  first,  for 
its  near  appearance  to  empty  the  name  of  its  tre- 
mendous associations,  or  to  drive  out  the  image  of 
that  holy  city,  "con jubilant  with  song." 

I  had  seen  the  dome  of  the  church  from  the 
hotel  balcony ;  the  building  itself  is  so  hemmed  in 
by  houses  that  only  its  south  side,  in  which  is  the 
sole  entrance,  can  be  seen  from  the  street.  In 
front  of  this  entrance  is  a  small  square ;  the  de- 
scent to  this  square  is  by  a  flight  of  steps  down 
Palmer  Street,  a  lane  given  up  to  the  traffic  in 
beads,  olive-wood,  ivory -carving,  and  the  thousand 
trinkets,  most  of  them  cheap  and  inartistic,  which 
absorb  the  industry  of  the  Holy  City.  The  little 
square  itself,  surrounded  by  ancient  buildings  on 
three  sides  and  by  the  blackened  walls  of  the 
church  on  the  north,  might  be  set  down  in  a  medi- 
aeval Italian  town  without  incongruity.  And  at 
the  hour  I  first  saw  it,  you  would  have  said  that 
a  market  or  fair  was  in  progress  there.  This, 
however,  I  found  was  its  normal  condition.  It 
is  always  occupied  by  a  horde  of  more  clamorous 
and  impudent  merchants  than  you  will  find  in  any 
other  place  in  the  Orient. 

It  is  with  some  difficulty  that  the  pilgrim  can 
get  through  the  throng  and  approach  the  portal. 
The  pavement  is  covered  with  heaps  of  beads, 
shells,  and  every  species  of  holy  fancy-work,  by 
which  are  seated  the  traders,  men  and  women,  in 
wait  for  customers.  The  moment  I  stopped  to 


40  JERUSALEM 

look  at  the  church,  and  it  was  discovered  that  I 
was  a  new-comer,  a  rush  was  made  at  me  from 
every  part  of  the  square,  and  I  was  at  once  the 
centre  of  the  most  eager  and  hungry  crowd. 
Sharp-faced  Greeks,  impudent  Jews,  fair-faced 
women  from  Bethlehem,  sleek  Armenians,  thrust 
strings  of  rude  olive  beads  and  crosses  into  my 
face,  forced  upon  my  notice  trumpery  carving  in 
ivory,  in  nuts,  in  seeds,  and  screamed  prices  and 
entreaties  in  chorus,  bidding  against  each  other 
and  holding  fast  to  me,  as  if  I  were  the  last  man, 
and  this  were  the  last  opportunity  they  would  ever 
have  of  getting  rid  of  their  rubbish.  Handfuls  of 
beads  rapidly  fell  from  five  francs  to  half  a  franc, 
and  the  dealers  insisted  upon  my  buying,  with  a 
threatening  air;  I  remember  one  hard-featured 
and  rapacious  wretch  who  danced  about  and  clung 
to  me,  and  looked  into  my  eyes  with  an  expression 
that  said  plainly,  "If  you  don't  buy  these  beads 
I  '11  murder  you."  My  recollection  is  that  I 
bought,  for  I  never  can  resist  a  persuasion  of  this 
sort.  Whenever  I  saw  the  fellow  in  the  square 
afterwards,  I  always  fancied  that  he  regarded  me 
with  a  sort  of  contempt,  but  he  made  no  further 
attempt  on  my  life. 

This  is  the  sort  of  preparation  that  one  daily  has 
in  approaching  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre. 
The  greed  and  noise  of  traffic  around  it  are  as  fatal 
to  sentiment  as  they  are  to  devotion.  You  may  be 
amused  one  day,  you  may  be  indignant  the  next; 
at  last  you  will  be  weary  of  the  importunate  crowd ; 
and  the  only  consolation  you  can  get  from  these 


CHURCH    OF   THE    HOLY    SEPULCHRE  41 

daily  scenes  of  the  desecration  of  the  temple  of 
pilgrimage  is  the  proof  they  afford  that  this  is  in- 
deed Jerusalem,  and  that  these  are  the  legitimate 
descendants  of  the  thieves  whom  Christ  scourged 
from  the  precincts  of  the  Temple.  Alas  that  they 
should  thrive  under  the  new  dispensation  as  they 
did  under  the  old ! 

A  considerable  part  of  the  present  Church  of 
the  Holy  Sepulchre  is  not  more  than  sixty  years 
old;  but  the  massive,  carved,  and  dark  south  por- 
tal, and  the  remains  of  the  old  towers  and  walls  on 
this  side,  may  be  eight  hundred.  There  has  been 
sore,  sort  of  a  church  here  ever  since  the  time  of 
Cor,  stan  tine  (that  is,  three  centuries  after  the  cru- 
cifixion of  our  Lord),  which  has  marked  the  spot 
chat  was  then  determined  to  be  the  site  of  the  Holy 
Sepulchre.  Many  a  time  the  buildings  have  been 
swept  away  by  fire  or  by  the  fanaticism  of  enemies, 
but  they  have  as  often  been  renewed.  There  would 
seem  at  first  to  have  been  a  cluster  of  buildings 
here,  each  of  which  arose  to  cover  a  newly  dif cov- 
ered sacred  site.  Happily,  all  the  sacred  places 
are  now  included  within  the  walls  of  this  many- 
roofed,  heterogeneous  mass  of  chapels,  shrines, 
tombs,  and  altars  of  worship  of  many  warring 
sects,  called  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre. 

Happily  also  the  exhaustive  discussion  of  the 
question  of  the  true  site  of  the  sepulchre,  conducted 
by  the  most  devout  and  accomplished  biblical 
scholars  and  the  keenest  antiquarians  of  the  age, 
relieves  the  ordinary  tourist  from  anv  obligation 
to  enter  upon  an  investigation  that  would  interest 


42  JERUSALEM 

none  but  those  who  have  been  upon  the  spot.  No 
doubt  the  larger  portion  of  the  Christian  world  ac- 
cepts this  site  as  the  true  one. 

I  make  with  diffidence  a  suggestion  that  struck 
me,  although  it  may  not  be  new.  The  Pool  of 
Hezekiah  is  not  over  four  hundred  feet,  measured 
on  the  map,  from  the  dome  of  the  sepulchre.  Un- 
der the  church  itself  are  several  large  excavations 
in  the  rocks,  which  were  once  cisterns.  Ancient 
Jerusalem  depended  for  its  water  upon  these  cis- 
terns, which  took  the  drainage  from  the  roofs,  and 
upon  a  few  pools,  like  that  of  Hezekiah,  which 
were  fed  from  other  reservoirs,  such  as  Solomon's 
Pool,  at  a  considerable  distance  from  the  city. 
These  cisterns  under  the  church  may  not  date  back 
to  the  time  of  our  Lord,  but  if  they  do,  they  were 
doubtless  at  that  time  within  the  walls.  And  of 
course  the  Pool  of  Hezekiah,  so  near  to  this  alleged 
site,  cannot  be  supposed  to  have  been  beyond  the 
walls. 

Within  the  door  of  the  church,  upon  a  raised 
divan  at  one  side,  as  if  this  were  a  bazaar  and  he 
were  the  merchant,  sat  a  fat  Turk,  in  official  dress, 
the  sneering  warden  of  this  Christian  edifice,  and 
the  perhaps  necessary  guardian  of  peace  within. 
His  presence  there,  however,  is  at  first  a  disagree- 
able surprise  to  all  those  who  rebel  at  owing  an 
approach  to  the  holy  place  to  the  toleration  of  a 
Moslem;  but  I  was  quite  relieved  of  any  sense  of 
obligation  when,  upon  coming  out,  the  Turk  asked 
me  for  backsheesh  ! 

Whatever  one  may  think  as  to  the  site  of  Cal' 


THE    HOLY    SEPULCHRE  43 

vary,  no  one  can  approach  a  spot  which  even  claims 
to  be  it,  and  which  has  been  for  centuries  the 
object  of  worship  of  millions,  and  is  constantly 
thronged  by  believing  pilgrims,  without  profound 
emotion.  It  was  late  in  the  afternoon  when  I  en- 
tered the  church,  and  already  the  shades  of  evening 
increased  the  artificial  gloom  of  the  interior.  At 
the  very  entrance  lies  an  object  that  arrests  one. 
It  is  a  long  marble  slab  resting  upon  the  pavement, 
about  which  candles  are  burning.  Every  devout 
pilgrim  who  comes  in  kneels  and  kisses  it,  and  it 
is  sometimes  difficult  to  see  it  for  the  crowds  who 
press  about  it.  Underneath  it  is  supposed  to  be 
the  Stone  of  Unction  upon  which  the  Lord's  body 
was  laid,  according  to  the  Jewish  fashion,  for 
anointing,  after  he  was  taken  from  the  cross. 

1  turned  directly  into  the  rotunda,  under  the 
dome  of  which  is  the  stone  building  inclosing  the 
Holy  Sepulchre,  a  ruder  structure  than  that  which 
rovers  the  hut  and  tomb  of  St.  Francis  in  the 
church  at  Assisi.  I  met  in  the  way  a  procession 
of  Latin  monks,  bearing  caudles,  and  chanting  as 
they  walked.  They  were  making  the  round  of  the 
lioly  places  in  the  church,  this  being  their  hour  for 
the  tour.  The  sects  have  agreed  upon  certain 
hours  for  these  little  daily  pilgrimages,  so  that 
there  shall  be  no  collision.  A  rabble  of  pilgrims 
followed  the  monks.  They  had  just  come  from 
incensing  and  adoring  the  sepulchre,  and  the  crowd 
of  other  pilgrims  who  had  been  waiting  their  turn 
were  now  pressing  in  at  the  narrow  door.  As 
manv  times  as  I  have  been  there,  I  have  always 


44  JERUSALEM 

seen  pilgrims  struggling  to  get  in  and  struggling 
to  get  out.  The  proud  and  the  humble  crowd 
there  together;  the  greasy  boor  from  beyond  the 
Volga  jostles  my  lady  from  Naples,  and  the  dainty 
pilgrim  from  America  pushes  her  way  through  a 
throng  of  stout  Armenian  peasants.  But  I  have 
never  seen  any  disorder  there,  nor  any  rudeness, 
except  the  thoughtless  eagerness  of  zeal. 

Taking  my  chance  in  the  line,  I  passed  into  the 
first  apartment,  called  the  Chapel  of  the  Angel,  a 
narrow  and  gloomy  ante-chamber,  which  takes  its 
name  from  the  fragment  of  stone  in  the  centre,  the 
stone  upon  which  the  angel  sat  after  it  had  been 
rolled  away  from  the  sepulchre.  A  stream  of 
light  came  through  the  low  and  narrow  door  of  the 
tomb.  Through  the  passage  to  this  vaidt  only  one 
person  can  enter  at  a  time,  and  the  tomb  will  hold 
no  more  than  three  or  four.  Stooping  along  the 
passage,  which  is  cased  with  marble  like  the  tomb, 
and  may  cover  natural  rock,  I  came  into  the  sacred 
place,  and  into  a  blaze  of  silver  lamps  and  can- 
dles. The  vault  is  not  more  than  six  feet  by  seven, 
and  is  covered  by  a  low  dome.  The  sepulchral 
stone  occupies  all  the  right  side,  and  is  the  object 
of  devotion.  It  is  of  marble,  supposed  to  cover 
natural  stone,  and  is  cracked  and  worn  smooth  on 
the  edge  by  the  kisses  of  millions  of  people.  The 
attendant  who  stood  at  one  end  opened  a  little  trap- 
door, in  which  lamp-cloths  were  kept,  and  let  me 
see  the  naked  rock,  which  is  said  to  be  that  of  the 
tomb.  While  I  stood  there  in  that  very  centre  of 
the  faith  and  longing  of  so  many  souls,  which 


COMPLETE   MISERY  45 

seemed  almost  to  palpitate  with  a  consciousness  of 
its  awful  position,  pilgrim  after  pilgrim,  on  bended 
knees,  entered  the  narrow  way,  kissed  with  fervor 
or  with  coldness  the  unresponsive  marble,  and 
withdrew  in  the  same  attitude.  Some  approached 
it  with  streaming  eyes  and  kissed  it  with  trembling 
rapture;  some  ladies  threw  themselves  upon  the 
cold  stone  and  sobbed  aloud.  Indeed,  I  did  not 
of  my  own  will  intrude  upon  these  acts  of  devo- 
tion, which  have  the  right  of  secrecy,  but  it  was 
some  time  before  I  could  escape,  so  completely 
was  the  entrance  blocked  up.  When  I  had  strug- 
gled out,  I  heard  chanting  from  the  hill  of  Gol- 
gotha, and  saw  the  gleaming  of  a  hundred  lights 
from  chapel  and  tomb  and  remote  recesses,  but  I 
cared  to  see  no  more  of  the  Temple  itself  that  day. 
The  next  morning  (it  was  the  7th  of  April)  was 
very  cold,  and  the  day  continued  so.  Without, 
the  air  was  keen,  and  within,  it  was  nearly  impos- 
sible to  get  warm  or  keep  so,  in  the  thick-walled 
houses,  which  had  gathered  the  damp  and  chill  of 
dungeons.  You  might  suppose  that  the  dirtiest 
and  most  beggarly  city  in  the  world  could  not  be 
much  deteriorated  by  the  weather,  but  it  is.  In  a 
cheerful,  sunny  day  you  find  that  the  desolation  of 
Jerusalem  has  a  certain  charm  and  attraction : 
even  a  tattered  Jew  leaning  against  a  ruined  wall, 
or  a  beggar  on  a  dunghill,  is  picturesque  in  the 
sunshine;  but  if  you  put  a  day  of  chill  rain  and 
frosty  wind  into  the  city,  none  of  the  elements  of 
complete  misery  are  wanting.  There  is  nothing  to 
be  done,  day  or  night;  indeed,  there  is  nothing 


46  JERUSALEM 

ever  to  be  done  in  the  evening,  except  to  read  your 
guide-book,  —  that  is,  the  Bible,  —  and  go  to  bed. 
You  are  obliged  to  act  like  a  Christian  here,  what- 
ever you  are. 

Speaking  of  the  weather,  a  word  about  the  time 
for  visiting  Syria  may  not  be  amiss.  In  the  last 
part  of  March  the  snow  was  a  foot  deep  in  the 
streets;  parties  who  had  started  on  their  tour 
northward  were  snowed  in  and  forced  to  hide  in 
their  tents  three  days  from  the  howling  winter. 
There  is  pleasure  for  you  !  We  found  friends  in 
the  city  who  had  been  waiting  two  weeks  after 
they  had  exhausted  its  sights,  for  settled  weather 
that  would  permit  them  to  travel  northward.  To 
be  sure,  the  inhabitants  say  that  this  last  storm 
ought  to  have  been  rain  instead  of  snow,  according 
to  the  habit  of  the  seasons;  and  it  no  doubt  would 
have  been  if  this  region  were  not  twenty-five  hun- 
dred feet  above  the  sea.  The  hardships  of  the 
Syrian  tour  are  enough  in  the  best  weather,  and  I 
am  convinced  that  our  dragoman  is  right  in  saying 
that  most  travelers  begin  it  too  early  in  the  spring. 

Jerusalem  is  not  a  formidable  city  to  the  ex- 
plorer who  is  content  to  remain  above  ground, 
and  is  not  too  curious  about  its  substructions  and 
buried  walls,  and  has  no  taste,  as  some  have,  for 
crawling  through  its  drains.  I  suppose  it  would 
elucidate  the  history  of  the  Jews  if  we  could  dig 
all  this  hill  away  and  lay  bare  all  the  old  founda- 
tions, and  ascertain  exactly  how  the  city  was  wa- 
tered. I,  for  one,  am  grateful  to  the  excellent 
man  and  great  scholar  who  crawled  on  his  hands 


POOL   OF    SI  LOAM 


ANCIENT    SITES  47 

and  knees  through  a  subterranean  conduit,  and 
established  the  fact  of  a  connection  between  the 
Fountain  of  the  Virgin  and  the  Pool  of  Siloam. 
But  I  would  rather  contribute  money  to  establish 
a  school  for  girls  in  the  Holy  City,  than  to  aid  in 
laying  bare  all  the  aqueducts  from  Ophel  to  the 
Tower  of  David.  But  this  is  probably  because  I 
do  not  enough  appreciate  the  importance  of  such 
researches  among  Jewish  remains  to  the  progress 
of  Christian  truth  and  morality  in  the  world.  The 
discoveries  hitherto  made  have  done  much  to  clear 
up  the  topography  of  ancient  Jerusalem ;  I  do  not 
know  that  they  have  yielded  anything  valuable  to 
art  or  to  philology,  any  treasures  illustrating  the 
habits,  the  social  life,  the  culture,  or  the  religion 
of  the  past,  such  as  are  revealed  beneath  the  soil 
of  Rome  or  in  the  ashes  of  Pompeii ;  it  is,  however, 
true  that  almost  every  tourist  in  Jerusalem  be- 
comes speedily  involved  in  all  these  questions  of 
ancient  sites,  —  the  identification  of  valleys  that 
once  existed,  of  walls  that  are  now  sunk  under  the 
accumulated  rubbish  of  two  thousand  years,  from 
thirty  feet  to  ninety  feet  deep,  and  of  foundations 
that  are  rough  enough  and  massive  enough  to  have 
been  laid  by  David  and  cemented  by  Solomon. 
And  the  fascination  of  the  pursuit  would  soon  send 
one  underground,  with  a  pickaxe  and  a  shoveL 
But  of  all  the  diggings  I  saw  in  the  Holy  City, 
that  which  interested  me  most  was  the 'excavation 
of  the  church  and  hospital  of  the  chivalric  Knights 
of  St.  John ;  concerning  which  I  shall  say  a  word 
further  on. 


48  JERUSALEM 

The  present  walls  were  built  by  Sultan  Suleiman 
in  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century,  upon  foun- 
dations much  older,  and  here  and  there,  as  you 
can  see,  upon  big  blocks  of  Jewish  workmanship. 
The  wall  is  high  enough  and  very  picturesque  in 
its  zigzag  course  and  reentering  angles,  and,  I 
suppose,  strong  enough  to  hitch  a  horse  to;  but 
cannon-balls  would  make  short  work  of  it. 

Having  said  thus  much  of  the  topography,  gra- 
tuitously and  probably  unnecessarily,  for  every  one 
is  supposed  to  know  Jerusalem  as  well  as  he  knows 
his  native  town,  we  are  free  to  look  at  anything 
that  may  chance  to  interest  us.  I  do  not  expect, 
however,  that  any  words  of  mine  can  convey  to  the 
reader  a  just  conception  of  the  sterile  and  blasted 
character  of  this  promontory  and  the  country 
round  about  it,  or  of  the  squalor,  shabbiness,  and 
unpicturesqueness  of  the  city,  always  excepting  a 
few  of  its  buildings  and  some  fragments  of  anti- 
quity built  into  modern  structures  here  and  there. 
And  it  is  difficult  to  feel  that  this  spot  was  ever 
the  splendid  capital  of  a  powerful  state,  that  this 
arid  and  stricken  country  could  ever  have  supplied 
the  necessities  of  such  a  capital,  and,  above  all, 
that  so  many  Jews  could  ever  have  been  crowded 
within  this  cramped  space  as  Josephus  says  per- 
ished in  the  siege  by  Titus,  when  ninety-seven 
thousand  were  carried  into  captivity  and  eleven 
hundred  thousand  died  by  famine  and  the  sword. 
Almost  the  entire  Jewish  nation  must  have  been 
packed  within  this  small  area. 

Our  first  walk  through  the  city  was  in  the  Via 


THE    VIA   DOLOROSA  49 

Dolorosa,  as  gloomy  a  thoroughfare  as  its  name 
implies.  Its  historical  portion  is  that  steep  and 
often  angled  part  between  the  Holy  Sepulchre  and 
the  house  of  Pilate,  but  we  traversed  the  whole 
length  of  it  to  make  our  exit  from  St.  Stephen's 
Gate  toward  the  Mount  of  Olives.  It  is  only 
about  four  hundred  years  ago  that  this  street  ob- 
tained  the  name  of  the  Via  Dolorosa,  and  that  the 
sacred  "stations"  on  it  were  marked  out  for  the 
benefit  of  the  pilgrim.  It  is  a  narrow  lane,  steep 
in  places,  having  frequent  sharp  angles,  running 
under  arches,  and  passing  between  gloomy  build- 
ings, enlivened  by  few  shops.  Along  this  way 
Christ  passed  from  the  Judgment  Hall  of  Pilate 
to  Calvary.  I  do  not  know  how  many  times  the 
houses  along  it  have  been  destroyed  and  rebuilt 
since  their  conflagration  by  Titus,  but  this  destruc- 
tion is  no  obstacle  to  the  existence  intact  of  all 
that  are  necessary  to  illustrate  the  Passion-pil- 
grimage of  our  Lord.  In  this  street  I  saw  the 
house  of  Simon  the  Cyrenian,  who  bore  the  cross 
after  Jesus ;  I  saw  the  house  of  St.  Veronica,  from 
which  that  woman  stepped  forth  and  gave  Jesus  a 
handkerchief  to  wipe  his  brow,  —  the  handkerchief, 
with  the  Lord's  features  imprinted  on  it,  which  we 
have  all  seen  exhibited  at  St.  Peter's  in  Rome; 
and  I  looked  for  the  house  of  the  Wandering 
Jew,  or  at  least  for  the  spot  where  he  stood  when 
he  received  that  awful  mandate  of  fleshly  immor- 
tality. In  this  street  are  recognized  the  severai 
"stations"  that  Christ  made  in  bearing  the  cross: 

o 

we  were  shown  the  places  where  he  fell,  a  stone 


50  JERUSALEM 

having  the  impress  of  his  hand,  a  pillar  broken  by 
his  fall,  and  also  the  stone  upon  which  Mary  sat 
when  he  passed  by.  Nothing  is  wanting  that  the 
narrative  requires.  We  saw  also  in  this  street  the 
house  of  Dives,  and  the  stone  on  which  Lazarus 
sat  while  the  dogs  ministered  unto  him.  It  seemed 
to  me  that  I  must  be  in  a  dream,  in  thus  beholding 
the  houses  and  places  of  resort  of  the  characters  in 
a  parable;  and  I  carried  my  dilemma  to  a  Cath- 
olic friend.  But  a  learned  father  assured  him  that 
there  was  no  doubt  that  this  is  the  house  of  Dives, 
for  Christ  often  took  his  parables  from  real  life. 
After  that  I  went  again  to  look  at  the  stone,  in  a 
corner  of  a  building  amid  a  heap  of  refuse,  upon 
which  the  beggar  sat,  and  to  admire  the  pretty 
stone  tracery  of  the  windows  in  the  house  of  Dives. 
At  the  end  of  the  street,  in  a  new  Latin  nun- 
nery, are  the  remains  of  the  house  of  Pilate,  which 
are  supposed  to  be  authentic.  The  present  estab- 
lishment is  called  the  convent  of  St.  Anne,  and  the 
community  is  very  fortunate,  at  this  late  day,  in 
obtaining  such  a  historic  site  for  itself.  We  had 
the  privilege  of  seeing  here  some  of  the  original 
rock  that  formed  part  of  the  foundations  of  Pilate's 
house;  and  there  are  three  stones  built  into  the 
altar  that  were  taken  from  the  pavement  of  Gab- 
batha,  upon  which  Christ  walked.  These  are  re- 
cent discoveries ;  it  appears  probable  that  the  real 
pavement  of  Gabbatha  has  been  found,  since 
Pilate's  house  is  so  satisfactorily  identified.  Span- 
ning the  street  in  front  of  this  convent  is  the  Ecce 
Homo  arch,  upon  which  Pilate  showed  Christ  to 


VIA    DO LORDS A 


THE    TOWER    OF    DAVID  51 

the  populace.  The  ground  of  the  new  building 
was  until  recently  in  possession  of  the  Moslems, 
who  would  not  sell  it  for  a  less  price  than  seventy 
thousand  francs ;  the  arch  they  would  not  sell  at 
all ;  and  there  now  dwells,  in  a  small  chamber  on 
top  of  it,  a  Moslem  saint  and  hermit.  The  world 
of  pilgrims  flows  under  his  feet ;  he  looks  from  his 
window  upon  a  daily  procession  of  Christians,  who 
traverse  the  Via  Dolorosa,  having  first  signified 
their  submission  to  the  Moslem  yoke  in  the  Holy 
City  by  passing  under  this  arch  of  humiliation. 
The  hermit,  however,  has  the  grace  not  to  show 
himself,  and  few  know  that  he  sits  there,  in  the 
holy  occupation  of  letting  his  hair  and  his  nails 
grow. 

From  the  house  of  the  Roman  procurator  we 
went  to  the  citadel  of  Sultan  Suleiman.  This 
stands  close  by  the  Jaffa  Gate,  and  is  the  most 
picturesque  object  in  all  the  circuit  of  the  walls, 
and,  although  the  citadel  is  of  modern  origin,  its 
most  characteristic  portion  lays  claim  to  great  an- 
tiquity. The  massive  structure  which  impresses 
all  strangers  who  enter  by  the  Jaffa  Gate  is  called 
the  Tower  of  Hippicus,  and  also  the  Tower  of 
David.  It  is  identified  as  the  tower  which  Herod 
built  and  Josephus  describes,  and  there  is  as  little 
doubt  that  its  foundations  are  the  same  that  David 
laid  and  Solomon  strengthened.  There  are  no 
such  stones  in  any  other  part  of  the  walls  as  these 
enormous  beveled  blocks;  they  surpass  those  in 
the  Harem  wall,  at  what  is  called  the  Jews'  Wail- 
ing Place.  The  tower  stands  upon  the  northwest 


52  JERUSALEM 

corner  of  the  old  wall  of  Zioii,  and  being  the  point 
most  open  to  attack  it  was  most  strongly  built. 

It  seems  also  to  have  been  connected  with  the 
palace  011  Zion  which  David  built,  for  it  is  the 
tradition  that  it  was  from  this  tower  that  the  king 
first  saw  Bathsheba,  the  wife  of  Uriah,  when  "it 
came  to  pass  in  an  eventide  that  David  arose  from 
off  his  bed,  and  walked  upon  the  roof  of  the  king's 
house :  and  from  the  roof  he  saw  a  woman  washing 
herself ;  and  the  woman  was  very  beautiful  to  look 
upon."  On  the  other  side  of  the  city  gate  we  now 
look  down  upon  the  Pool  of  Bathsheba,  in  which 
there  is  no  water,  and  we  are  informed  that  it  was 
by  that  pool  that  the  lovely  woman,  who  was  des- 
tined to  be  the  mother  of  Solomon,  sat  when  the 
king  took  his  evening  walk.  Others  say  that  she 
sat  by  the  Pool  of  Gihon.  It  does  not  matter. 
The  subject  was  a  very  fruitful  one  for  the  artists 
of  the  Renaissance,  who  delighted  in  a  glowing 
reproduction  of  the  biblical  stories,  and  found  in 
such  incidents  as  this  and  the  confusion  of  Susanna 
themes  in  which  the  morality  of  the  age  could  ex- 
press itself  without  any  conflict  with  the  religion 
of  the  age.  It  is  a  comment  not  so  much  upon  the 
character  of  David  as  upon  the  morality  of  the  time 
in  which  he  lived,  that  although  he  repented,  and 
no  doubt  sincerely,  of  his  sin  when  reproved  for 
it,  his  repentance  did  not  take  the  direction  of  self- 
denial  ;  he  did  not  send  away  Bathsheba. 

This  square  old  tower  is  interiorly  so  much  in 
ruins  that  it  is  not  easy  to  climb  to  its  parapet, 
and  yet  it  still  has  a  guard-house  attached  to  it, 


THE    ARMENIAN    CONVENT  53 

and  is  kept  like  a  fortification;  a  few  rusty  old 
cannon,  under  the  charge  of  the  soldiers,  would 
injure  only  those  who  attempted  to  fire  them ;  the 
entire  premises  have  a  tumble-down,  Turkish  as- 
pect. The  view  from  the  top  is  the  best  in  the  city 
of  the  city  itself ;  we  saw  also  from  it  the  hills  of 
Moab  and  a  bit  of  the  Dead  Sea. 

Close  by  is  the  Armenian  quarter,  covering  a 
large  part  of  what  was  once  the  hill  of  Zion.  1 
wish  it  were  the  Christian  quarter,  for  it  is  the 
only  part  of  the  town  that  makes  any  pretension 
to  cleanliness,  and  it  has  more  than  any  other  the 
aspect  of  an  abode  of  peace  and  charity.  This  is 
owing  to  its  being  under  the  government  of  one 
corporation,  for  the  Armenian  convent  covers 
nearly  the  entire  space  of  this  extensive  quarter. 
The  convent  is  a  singular,  irregular  mass  of  houses, 
courts,  and  streets,  the  latter  apparently  running 
over  and  under  and  through  the  houses ;  you  come 
unexpectedly  upon  stairways,  you  traverse  roofs, 
you  enter  rooms  and  houses  on  the  roofs  of  other 
houses,  and  it  is  difficult  to  say  at  any  time 
whether  you  are  on  the  earth  or  in  the  air.  The 
convent,  at  this  season,  is  filled  with  pilgrims,  over 
three  thousand  of  whom,  I  was  told,  were  lodged 
here.  We  came  upon  families  of  them  in  the 
little  rooms  in  the  courts  and  corridors,  or  upon 
the  roofs,  pursuing  their  domestic  avocations  as  if 
they  were  at  home,  cooking,  mending,  sleeping,  a 
boorish  but  simple-minded  lot  of  peasants. 

The  church  is  a  large  and  very  interesting 
specimen  of  religious  architecture  and  splendid, 


54  JERUSALEM 

barbaric  decoration.  In  the  vestibule  hang  the 
"bells."  These  are  long  planks  of  a  sonorous 
wood,  which  give  forth  a  ringing  sound  when 
struck  with  a  club.  As  they  are  of  different  sizes, 
you  get  some  variation  of  tone,  and  they  can  be 
heard  far  enough  to  call  the  inmates  of  the  convent 
to  worship.  The  interior  walls  are  lined  with 
ancient  blue  tiles  to  a  considerable  height,  and 
above  them  are  rude  and  inartistic  sacred  pictures. 
There  is  in  the  church  much  curious  inlaid  work  of 
mother-of-pearl  and  olive-wood,  especially  about 
the  doors  of  the  chapels,  and  one  side  shines 
with  the  pearl  as  if  it  were  incr  listed  with  silver. 
Ostrich  eggs  are  strung  about  in  profusion,  with 
hooks  attached  for  hanging  lamps. 

The  first  day  of  our  visit  to  this  church,  in  one 
of  the  doorways  of  what  seemed  to  be  a  side  chapel, 
and  which  was  thickly  incrusted  with  mother-of- 
pearl,  stood  the  venerable  bishop,  in  a  light  rose- 
colored  robe  and  a  pointed  hood,  with  a  cross  in 
his  hand,  preaching  to  the  pilgrims,  who  knelt  on 
the  pavement  before  him,  talking  in  a  familiar  man- 
ner, and,  our  guide  said,  with  great  plainness  of 
speech.  The  Armenian  clergy  are  celebrated  for 
the  splendor  of  their  vestments,  and  I  could  not 
but  think  that  this  rose-colored  bishop,  in  his  shin- 
ing framework,  must  seem  like  a  being  of  another 
sphere  to  the  boors  before  him.  He  almost  im- 
posed upon  us. 

These  pilgrims  appeared  to  be  of  the  poorest 
agricultural  class  of  laborers,  and  their  costume  is 
uncouth  beyond  description.  In  a  side  chapel, 


PILGRIMS'  SHOES  55 

where  we  saw  tiles  on  the  walls  that  excited  our 
envy,  —  the  quaintest  figures  and  illustrations  of 
sacred  subjects,  —  the  clerks  were  taking  the 
names  of  pilgrims  just  arrived,  who  kneeled  before 
them  and  paid  a  Napoleon  each  for  their  lodging 
in  the  convent,  as  long  as  they  should  choose  to 
stay.  In  this  chapel  were  the  shoes  of  the  pilgrims 
who  had  gone  into  the  church,  a  motley  collection 
of  foot-gear,  covering  half  the  floor:  leather  and 
straw,  square  shoes  as  broad  as  long,  round  shoes, 
pointed  shoes,  old  shoes,  patched  shoes,  shoes  with 
the  toes  gone,  a  pathetic  gathering  that  told  of 
poverty  and  weary  travel  —  and  big  feet.  These 
shoes  were  things  to  muse  on,  for  each  pair,  made 
may  be  in  a  different  century,  seemed  to  have  a 
character  of  its  own,  as  it  stood  there  awaiting  the 
owner.  People  often  make  reflections  upon  a  pair 
of  shoes;  literature  is  full  of  them.  Poets  have 
celebrated  many  a  pretty  shoe,  —  a  queen's  slipper, 
it  may  be,  or  the  hobnail  brogan  of  a  peasant,  or, 
of tener,  the  tiny  shoes  of  a  child ;  but  it  is  seldom 
that  one  has  an  opportunity  for  such  comprehen- 
sive moralizing  as  was  here  given.  If  we  ever 
regretted  the  lack  of  a  poet  in  our  party,  it  was 
now. 

We  walked  along  the  Armenian  walls,  past  the 
lepers'  quarter,  and  outside  the  walls,  through  the 
Gate  of  Zion,  or  the  Gate  of  the  Prophet  David 
as  it  is  also  called,  and  came  upon  a  continuation 
of  the  plateau  of  the  hill  of  Zion,  which  is  now 
covered  with  cemeteries,  and  is  the  site  of  the 
house  of  Caiaphas,  and  of  the  tomb  of  David  and 


56  JERUSALEM 

those  kings  of  Jerusalem  who  were  considered  by 
the  people  worthy  of  sepulture  here;  for  the  Jews 
seem  to  have  brought  from  Egypt  the  notion  of 
refusing  royal  burial  to  their  bad  kings,  and  they 
had  very  few  respectable  ones. 

The  house  of  Caiaphas  the  high-priest  had  suf- 
fered a  recent  tumble-down,  and  was  in  such  a 
state  of  ruin  that  we  could  with  difficulty  enter 
it  or  recognize  any  likeness  of  a  house.  On  the 
premises  is  an  Armenian  chapel;  in  it  we  were 
shown  the  prison  in  which  Christ  was  confined, 
also  the  stone  door  of  the  sepulchre,  which  the 
Latins  say  the  Armenians  stole.  But  the  most 
remarkable  object  here  is  the  little  marble  column 
(having  carved  on  it  a  figure  of  Christ  bound  to  a 
pillar)  upon  which  the  cock  stood  and  crowed  when 
Peter  denied  his  Lord.  There  are  some  difficul- 
ties in  the  way  of  believing  this  now,  but  they  will 
lessen  as  the  column  gets  age. 

Outside  this  gate  lie  the  desolate  fields  strewn 
witn  the  brown  tombstones  of  the  Greeks  and 
Armenians,  a  melancholy  spectacle.  Each  sect 
has  its  own  cemetery,  and  the  dead  sleep  peaceably 
enough,  but  the  living  who  bury  them  frequently 
quarrel.  I  saw  one  day  a  funeral  procession 
halted  outside  the  walls;  for  some  reason  the 
Greek  priest  had  refused  the  dead  burial  in  the 
grave  dug  for  him  in  the  cemetery ;  the  bier  was 
dumped  on  the  slope  beside  the  road,  and  half 
overturned ;  the  friends  were  sitting  on  the  ground, 
wrangling.  The  man  had  been  dead  three  days, 
and  the  coffin  had  been  by  the  roadside  in  this 


A    PATHLESS    NECROPOLIS  57 

place  since  the  day  before.  This  was  in  the  morn- 
ing; towards  night  I  saw  the  same  crowd  there, 
but  a  Turkish  official  appeared  and  ordered  the 
Greeks  to  bury  their  dead  somewhere,  and  that 
without  delay ;  to  bury  it  for  the  sake  of  the  public 
health,  and  quarrel  about  the  grave  afterwards  if 
they  must.  A  crowd  collected,  joining  with  fiery 
gesticulation  and  clamor  in  the  dispute,  the  shrill 
voices  of  women  being  heard  above  all ;  but  at  last, 
four  men  roughly  shouldered  the  box,  handling 
it  as  if  it  contained  merchandise,  and  trotted  off 
with  it. 

As  we  walked  over  this  pathless,  barren  necrop- 
olis, strewn,  Imp-hazard  as  it  were,  with  shapeless, 
broken,  and  leaning  headstones,  it  was  impossible 
to  connect  with  it  any  sentiment  of  affection  or 
piety.  It  spoke,  like  everything  else  about  here, 
of  mortality,  and  seemed  only  a  part  of  that  his- 
torical Jerusalem  which  is  dead  and  buried,  in 
which  no  living  person  can  have  anything  more 
than  an  archaeological  interest.  It  was,  then,  with 
something  like  a  shock  that  we  heard  Demetrius, 
our  guide,  say,  pointing  to  a  rude  stone,  — 
"That  is  the  grave  of  my  mother!  " 
Demetrius  was  a  handsome  Greek  boy,  of  a 
beautiful  type  which  has  almost  disappeared  from 
Greece  itself,  and  as  clever  a  lad  as  ever  spoke  all 
languages  and  accepted  all  religions,  without  yield- 
ing too  much  to  any  one.  lie  had  been  well  edu- 
cated in  the  English  school,  and  his  education  had 
failed  to  put  any  faith  in  place  of  the  superstition 
it  had  destroyed.  The  boy  seemed  to  be  numer- 


58  JERUSALEM 

ously  if  not  well  connected  in  the  city;  he  was  al- 
ways exchanging  a  glance  and  a  smile  with  some 
pretty,  dark-eyed  Greek  girl  whom  we  met  in  the 
way,  and  when  I  said,  "Demetrius,  who  was 
that?  "  he  always  answered,  "That  is  my  cousin." 

The  boy  was  so  intelligent,  so  vivacious,  and 
full  of  the  spirit  of  adventure,  —  begging  me  a 
dozen  times  a  day  to  take  him  with  me  anywhere 
in  the  world,  —  and  so  modern,  that  he  had  not 
till  this  moment  seemed  to  belong  to  Jerusalem, 
nor  to  have  any  part  in  its  decay.  This  chance 
discovery  of  his  intimate  relation  to  this  necropolis 
gave,  if  I  may  say  so,  a  living  interest  to  it,  and 
to  all  the  old  burying-grounds  about  the  city,  some 
of  which  link  the  present  with  the  remote  past 
by  an  uninterrupted  succession  of  interments  for 
nearly  three  thousand  years. 

Just  beyond  this  expanse,  or  rather  in  part  of 
it,  is  a  small  plot  of  ground  surrounded  by  high 
whitewashed  walls,  the  entrance  to  which  is  secured 
by  a  heavy  door.  This  is  the  American  cemetery ; 
and  the  stout  door  and  thick  wall  are,  I  suppose, 
necessary  to  secure  its  graves  from  Moslem  insult. 
It  seems  not  to  be  visited  often,  for  it  was  with 
difficulty  that  we  could  turn  the  huge  key  in  the 
rusty  lock.  There  are  some  half-dozen  graves 
within;  the  graves  are  grass-grown  and  flower- 
sprinkled,  and  the  whole  area  is  a  tangle  of  unre- 
strained weeds  and  grass.  The  high  wall  cuts  off 
all  view,  but  we  did  not  for  the  time  miss  it, 
rather  liking  for  the  moment  to  be  secured  from  the 
sight  of  the  awful  desolation,  and  to  muse  upon 


THE   TOMB    OF    DAVID  59 

the  strange  fortune  that  had  drawn  to  be  buried 
here  upon  Mount  Zion,  as  a  holy  resting-place  for 
them,  people  alien  in  race,  language,  and  customs 
to  the  house  of  David,  and  removed  from  it  by 
such  spaces  of  time  and  distance ;  people  to  whom 
the  worship  performed  by  David,  if  he  could  renew 
it  in  person  on  Zion,  would  be  as  distasteful  as  is 
that  of  the  Jews  in  yonder  synagogue. 

Only  a  short  distance  from  this  we  came  to  the 
mosque  which  contains  the  tomb  of  David  and 
probably  of  Solomon  and  other  kings  of  Judah. 
No  historical  monument  in  or  about  Jerusalem  is 
better  authenticated  than  this.  Although  now  for 
many  centuries  the  Moslems  have  had  possession 
of  it  and  forbidden  access  to  it,  there  is  a  tolerably 
connected  tradition  of  its  possession.  It  was  twice 
opened  and  relieved  of  the  .enormous  treasure  in 
gold  and  silver  which  Solomon  deposited  in  it; 
once  by  Hyrcanus  Maccabseus,  who  took  what  he 
needed,  and  again  by  Herod,  who  found  very  little. 
There  are  all  sorts  of  stories  told  about  the  splen- 
dor of  this  tomb  and  the  state  with  which  the  Mos- 
lems surround  it.  But  they  envelop  it  in  so  much 
mystery  that  no  one  can  know  the  truth.  It  is 
probable  that  the  few  who  suppose  they  have  seen 
it  have  seen  only  a  sort  of  cenotaph  which  is  above 
the  real  tomb  in  the  rock  below.  The  room  which 
has  been  seen  is  embellished  with  some  display  of 
richness  in  shawls  and  hangings  of  gold  embroi- 
dery, and  contains  a  sarcophagus  of  rough  stone, 
and  lights  are  always  burning  there.  If  the  royal 
tombs  are  in  this  place,  they  are  doubtless  in  the 
cave  below. 


60  JERUSALEM 

Over  this  spot  was  built  a  church  by  the  early 
Christians ;  and  it  is  a  tradition  that  in  this  build- 
ing was  the  Ccenaculum.  This  site  may  very  likely 
be  that  of  the  building  where  the  Last  Supper  was 
laid,  and  it  may  be  that  St.  Stephen  suffered  mar- 
tyrdom here,  and  that  the  Virgin  died  here;  the 
building  may  be  as  old  as  the  fourth  century,  but 
the  chances  of  any  building  standing  so  long  in 
this  repeatedly  destroyed  city  are  not  good.  There 
is  a  little  house  north  of  this  mosque  in  which  the 
Virgin  spent  the  last  years  of  her  life;  if  she  did, 
she  must  have  lived  to  be  over  a  thousand  years 
old. 

On  the  very  brow  of  the  hill,  and  overlooking 
the  lower  pool  of  Gihon,  is  the  English  school, 
with  its  pretty  garden  and  its  cemetery.  We  saw 
there  some  excavations,  by  which  the  bed-rock  had 
been  laid  bare,  disclosing  some  stone  steps  cut  in 
it.  Search  is  being  made  here  for  the  Seat  of  Sol- 
omon, but  it  does  not  seem  to  me  a  vital  matter, 
for  I  suppose  he  sat  down  all  over  this  hill,  which 
was  covered  with  his  palaces  and  harems  and  other 
buildings  of  pleasure,  built  of  stones  that  "were  of 
great  value,  such  as  are  dug  out  of  the  earth  for 
the  ornaments  of  temples  and  to  make  fine  pros- 
pects in  royal  palaces,  and  which  make  the  mines 
whence  they  are  dug  famous."  Solomon's  palace 
was  constructed  entirely  of  white  stone,  and  cedar- 
wood,  and  gold  and  silver;  in  it  "were  very  long 
cloisters,  and  those  situate  in  an  agreeable  place 
in  the  palace,  and  among  them  a  most  glorious 
dining-room  for  f eastings  and  ccmpotations ;  "  in- 


THE    MONTEFIORE   TENEMENTS  61 

deed,  Josephus  finds  it  difficult  to  reckon  up  the 
variety  and  the  magnitude  of  the  royal  apartments, 
—  "  how  many  that  were  subterraneous  and  invisi- 
ble, the  curiosity  of  those  that  enjoyed  the  fresh 
air,  and  the  groves  for  the  most  delightful  pros- 
pect, for  avoiding  the  heat,  and  covering  their 
bodies."  If  this  most  luxurious  of  monarchs  in- 
troduced here  all  the  styles  of  architecture  which 
would  represent  the  nationality  of  his  wives,  as 
he  built  temples  to  suit  their  different  religions, 
the  hill  of  Zion  must  have  resembled,  on  a  small 
scale,  the  Munich  of  King  Ludwig  I. 

Opposite  the  English  school,  across  the  Valley 
of  Hinnom,  is  a  long  block  of  modern  buildings 
which  is  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  objects  out- 
side the  city.  It  was  built  by  another  rich  Jew, 
Sir  Moses  Montefiore,  of  London,  and  contains 
tenements  for  poor  Jews.  Sir  Moses  is  probably 
as  rich  as  Solomon  was  in  his  own  right,  and  he 
makes  a  most  charitable  use  of  his  money;  but  I 
do  not  suppose  that  if  he  had  at  his  command  the 
public  wealth  that  Solomon  had,  who  made  silver 
as  plentiful  as  stones  in  the  streets  of  Jerusalem, 
he  could  materially  alleviate  the  lazy  indigence  of 
the  Jewish  exiles  here.  The  aged  philanthropist 
made  a  journey  hither  in  the  summer  of  1875,  to 
ascertain  for  himself  the  condition  of  the  Jews. 
I  believe  he  has  a  hope  of  establishing  manufac- 
tories in  which  they  can  support  themselves ;  but 
the  minds  of  the  Jews  who  are  already  restored 
are  not  set  upon  any  sort  of  industry.  It  seems 
to  me  that  they  could  be  maintained  much  more 


62  JERUSALEM 

cheaply  if  they  were  transported  to  a  less  barren 
land. 

We  made,  one  day,  an  exploration  of  the  Jews' 
quarter,  which  enjoys  the  reputation  of  being  more 
filthy  than  the  Christian.  The  approach  to  it  is 
down  a  gutter  which  has  the  sounding  name  of  the 
Street  of  David ;  it  was  bad  enough,  but  when  we 
entered  the  Jews'  part  of  the  city  we  found  our- 
selves in  lanes  and  gutters  of  incomparable  un- 
pleasantness, and  almost  impassable,  with  nothing 
whatever  in  them  interesting  or  picturesque,  ex- 
cept the  inhabitants.  We  had  a  curiosity  to  see 
if  there  were  here  any  real  Jews  of  the  type  that 
inhabited  the  city  in  the  time  of  our  Lord,  and 
we  saw  many  with  fair  skin  and  light  hair,  with 
straight  nose  and  regular  features.  The  persons 
whom  we  are  accustomed  to  call  Jews,  and  who 
were  found  dispersed  about  Europe  at  a  very  early 
period  of  modern  history,  have  the  Assyrian  fea- 
tures, the  hook  nose,  dark  hair  and  eyes,  and  not 
at  all  the  faces  of  the  fair-haired  race  from  which 
our  Saviour  is  supposed  to  have  sprung.  The  king- 
dom of  Israel,  which  contained  the  ten  tribes,  was 
gobbled  up  by  the  Assyrians  about  the  time  Rome 
was  founded,  and  from  that  date  these  tribes  do 
not  appear  historically.  They  may  have  entirely 
amalgamated  with  their  conquerors,  and  the  modi- 
fied race  subsequently  have  passed  into  Europe; 
for  the  Jews  claim  to  have  been  in  Europe  before 
the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  by  Titus,  in  which 
nearly  all  the  people  of  the  kingdom  of  Judah 
perished. 


THE   TRIBE   OP    BENJAMIN  63 

Some  scholars,  who  have  investigated  the  prob- 
lem offered  by  the  two  types  above  mentioned, 
think  that  the  Jew  as  we  know  him  in  Europe  and 
America  is  not  the  direct  descendant  of  the  Jews 
of  Jerusalem  of  the  time  of  Herod,  and  that  the 
true  offspring  of  the  latter  is  the  person  of  the 
light  hair  and  straight  nose  who  is  occasionally  to 
be  found  in  Jerusalem  to-day.  Until  this  ethno- 
logical problem  is  settled,  I  shall  most  certainly 
withhold  my  feeble  contributions  for  the  "restora- 
tion "  of  the  persons  at  present  doing  business  un- 
der the  name  of  Jews  among  the  Western  nations. 

But  we  saw  another  type  of  Jew,  or  rather  an- 
other variety,  in  this  quarter.  He  called  himself 
of  the  tribe  of  Benjamin,  and  is,  I  think,  the  most 
unpleasant  human  being  I  have  ever  encountered. 
Every  man  who  supposes  himself  of  this  tribe  wears 
a  dark,  corkscrew,  stringy  curl  hanging  down  each 
side  of  his  face,  and  the  appearance  of  nasty  effem- 
inacy which  this  gives  cannot  be  described.  The 
tribe  of  Benjamin  does  not  figure  well  in  sacred 
history,  —  it  was  left-handed ;  it  was  pretty  much 
exterminated  by  the  other  tribes  once  for  an  awful 
crime;  it  was  held  from  going  into  the  settled 
idolatry  of  the  kingdom  of  Israel  -only  by  its  con- 
tiguity to  Judah,  —  but  it  was  better  than  its  de- 
scendants, if  these  are  its  descendants. 

More  than  half  of  the  eight  thousand  Jews  in 
Jerusalem  speak  Spanish  as  their  native  tongue, 
and  are  the  offspring  of  those  expelled  from  Spain 
by  Ferdinand.  Now  and  then,  I  do  not  know 
whether  it  was  Spanish  or  Arabic,  we  saw  a  good 


64  JERUSALEM 

face,  a  noble  countenance,  a  fine  Oriental  and  ven- 
erable type,  and  occasionally,  looking  from  a  win- 
dow, a  Jewish  beauty ;  but  the  most  whom  we  met 
were  debased,  misbegotten,  the  remnants  of  sin, 
squalor,  and  bad  living. 

We  went  into  two  of  the  best  synagogues,  —  one 
new,  with  a  conspicuous  green  dome.  They  are 
not  fine ;  on  the  contrary,  they  are  slatternly  places 
and  very  ill-kept.  On  the  benches  near  the  win- 
dows sat  squalid  men  and  boys  reading,  the  latter, 
no  doubt,  students  of  the  law;  all  the  passages, 
stairs,  and  by-rooms  were  dirty  and  disorderly,  as 
if  it  were  always  Monday  morning  there,  but  never 
washing-day;  rags  and  heaps  of  ancient  garments 
were  strewn  about;  and  occasionally  we  nearly 
stumbled  over  a  Jew,  indistinguishable  from  a  bun- 
dle of  old  clothes,  and  asleep  on  the  floor.  Even 
the  sanctuary  is  full  of  unkempt  people,  and  of  the 
evidences  of  the  squalor  of  the  quarter.  If  this 
is  a  specimen  of  the  restoration  of  the  Jews,  they 
had  better  not  be  restored  any  more. 

The  thing  to  do  (if  the  worldliness  of  the  expres- 
sion will  be  pardoned)  on  Friday  is  to  go  and  see 
the  Jews  wail,  as  in  Constantinople  it  is  to  see  the 
Sultan  go  to  prayer,  and  in  Cairo  to  hear  the  dar- 
wishes  howl.  The  performance,  being  an  open-air 
one,  is  sometimes  prevented  by  rain  or  snow,  but 
otherwise  it  has  not  failed  for  many  centuries. 
This  ancient  practice  is  probably  not  what  it  once 
was,  having  in  our  modern  days,  by  becoming  a 
sort  of  fashion,  lost  its  spontaneity;  it  will,  how- 
ever, doubtless  be  long  kept  up,  as  everything  of 


A  COMMUNITY   OF   LEPERS  65 

this  sort  endures  in  the  East,  even  if  it  should 
become  necessary  to  hire  people  to  wail. 

The  Friday  morning  of  the  day  chosen  for  our 
visit  to  the  wailing-place  was  rainy,  following  a 
rainy  night.  The  rough-paved  open  alleys  were 
gutters  of  mud,  the  streets  under  arches  (for  there 
are  shops  in  subterranean  constructions  and  old 
vaulted  passages)  were  damper  and  darker  than 
usual;  the  whole  city,  with  its  narrow  lanes,  and 
thick  walls,  and  no  sewers,  was  clammy  and  un- 
comfortable. We  loitered  for  a  time  in  the  dark 
and  grave-like  gold  bazaars,  where  there  is  but 
a  poor  display  of  attractions.  Pilgrims  from  all 
lands  were  sopping  about  in  the  streets ;  conspic- 
uous among  them  were  Persians  wearing  high, 
conical  frieze  hats,  and  short-legged,  big-calfed 
Russian  peasant  women,  —  animated  meal-bags. 

We  walked  across  to  the  Zion  Gate,  and  mount- 
ing the  city  wall  there  —  an  uneven  and  somewhat 
broken,  but  sightly  promenade  —  followed  it  round 
to  its  junction  with  the  Temple  wall,  and  to  Rob- 
inson's Arch.  Underneath  the  wall  by  Zion  Gate 
dwell,  in  low  stone  huts  and  burrows,  a  consider- 
able number  of  lepers,  who  form  a  horrid  commu- 
nity by  themselves.  These  poor  creatures,  with 
toeless  feet  and  fingerless  hands,  came  out  of  their 
dens  and  assailed  us  with  piteous  cries  for  charity. 
What  could  be  done?  It  was  impossible  to  give 
to  all.  The  little  we  threw  them  they  fought 
for,  and  the  unsuccessful  followed  us  with  whetted 
eagerness.  We  could  do  nothing  but  flee,  and  we 
climbed  the  wall  and  ran  down  it,  leaving  Dome- 


66  JERUSALEM 

trius  behind  as  a  rear  guard.  I  should  have  had 
more  pity  for  them  if  they  had  not  exhibited  so 
much  maliciousness.  They  knew  their  power,  and 
brought  all  their  loathsomeness  after  us,  think- 
ing that  we  would  be  forced  to  buy  their  retreat. 
Two  hideous  old  women  followed  us  a  long  dis- 
tance, and  when  they  became  convinced  that  fur- 
ther howling  and  whining  would  be  fruitless,  they 
suddenly  changed  tone  and  cursed  us  with  health- 
ful vigor;  having  cursed  us,  they  hobbled  home  to 
roost. 

This  part  of  the  wall  crosses  what  was  once 
the  Tyrophrean  Valley,  which  is  now  pretty  much 
filled  up ;  it  ran  between  Mount  Moriah,  on  which 
the  Temple  stood,  and  Mount  Zion.  It  was 
spanned  in  ancient  times  by  a  bridge  some  three 
hundred  and  fifty  feet  long,  resting  on  stone  arches 
whose  piers  must  have  been  from  one  hundred  to 
two  hundred  feet  in  height;  this  connected  the 
Temple  platform  with  the  top  of  the  steep  side  of 
Zion.  It  was  on  the  Temple  end  of  this  bridge 
that  Titus  stood  and  held  parley  with  the  Jews  who 
refused  to  surrender  Zion  after  the  loss  of  Moriah. 

The  exact  locality  of  this  interesting  bridge  was 
discovered  by  Dr.  Robinson.  Just  north  of  the 
southwest  corner  of  the  Harem  wall  (that  is,  the 
Temple  or  Mount  Moriah  wall)  he  noticed  three 
courses  of  huge  projecting  stones,  which  upon 
careful  inspection  proved  to  be  the  segment  of  an 
arch.  The  spring  of  the  arch  is  so  plainly  to  be 
seen  now  that  it  is  a  wonder  it  remained  so  long 
unknown. 


WEEPING   AND   WAILING  67 

The  Wailing-Place  of  the  Jews  is  on  the  west 
side  of  the  Temple  inclosure,  a  little  to  the  north 
of  this  arch ;  it  is  in  a  long,  narrow  court  formed 
by  the  walls  of  modern  houses  and  the  huge  blocks 
of  stone  of  this  part  of  the  original  wall.  These 
stones  are  no  doubt  as  old  as  Solomon's  Temple, 
and  the  Jews  can  here  touch  the  very  walls  of  the 
platform  of  that  sacred  edifice. 

Every  Friday  a  remnant  of  the  children  of  Israel 
comes  here  to  weep  and  wail.  They  bring  their 
Scriptures,  and  leaning  against  the  honeycombed 
stone,  facing  it,  read  the  Lamentations  and  the 
Psalms,  in  a  wailing  voice,  and  occasionally  cry 
aloud  in  a  chorus  of  lamentation,  weeping,  blow- 
ing their  long  noses  with  blue  cotton  handkerchiefs, 
and  kissing  the  stones.  We  were  told  that  the 
smoothness  of  the  stones  in  spots  was  owing  to 
centuries  of  osculation.  The  men  stand  together 
at  one  part  of  the  wall,  and  the  women  at  another. 
There  were  not  more  than  twenty  Jews  present  as 
actors  in  the  solemn  ceremony  the  day  we  visited 
the  spot,  and  they  did  not  wail  much,  merely  read- 
ing the  Scriptures  in  a  mumbling  voice  and  sway- 
ing their  bodies  backward  and  forward.  Still  they 
formed  picturesque  and  even  pathetic  groups :  ven- 
erable old  men  with  long  white  beards  and  hooked 
noses,  clad  in  rags  and  shreds  and  patches  in  all 
degrees  of  decadence;  lank  creatures  of  the  tribe 
of  Benjamin  with  the  corkscrew  curls ;  and  skinny 
old  women  shaking  with  weeping,  real  or  assumed. 

Very  likely  these  wailers  were  as  poor  and 
wretched  as  they  appeared  to  be,  and  their  tears 


68  JERUSALEM 

were  the  natural  outcome  of  their  grief  over  the 
ruin  of  the  Temple  nearly  two  thousand  years  ago. 
I  should  be  the  last  one  to  doubt  their  enjoyment 
of  this  weekly  bitter  misery.  But  the  demonstra- 
tion had  somewhat  the  appearance  of  a  set  and 
show  performance ;  while  it  was  going  on,  a  shrewd 
Israelite  went  about  with  a  box  to  collect  mites 
from  the  spectators.  There  were  many  more  trav- 
elers there  to  see  the  wailing  than  there  were  Jews 
to  wail.  This  also  lent  an  unfavorable  aspect  to 
the  scene.  I  myself  felt  that  if  this  were  genuine, 
I  had  no  business  to  be  there  with  my  undisguised 
curiosity ;  and  if  it  were  not  genuine,  it  was  the 
poorest  spectacle  that  Jerusalem  offers  to  the  tour- 
ist. Cook's  party  was  there  in  force,  this  being 
one  of  the  things  promised  in  the  contract ;  and  I 
soon  found  myself  more  interested  in  Cook's  pil- 
grims than  in  the  others. 

The  Scripture  read  and  wailed  this  day  was  the 
fifty-first  Psalm  of  David.  If  you  turn  to  it  (you 
may  have  already  discovered  that  the  covert  pur- 
pose of  these  desultory  notes  is  to  compel  you  to 
read  your  Bible),  you  will  see  that  it  expresses 
David's  penitence  in  the  matter  of  Bathsheba. 


Ill 


HOLY   PLACES   OF  THE   HOLY   CITY 

HE  sojourner  in  Jerusalem  falls  into 
the  habit  of  dropping  in  at  the  Church 
of  the  Holy  Sepulchre  nearly  every  af- 
ternoon. It  is  the  centre  of  attraction. 
There  the  pilgrims  all  resort;  there  one  sees,  in  a 
day,  many  races,  and  the  costumes  of  strange  and 
distant  peoples ;  there  one  sees  the  various  worship 
of  the  many  Christian  sects.  There  are  always 
processions  making  the  round  of  the  holy  places, 
sect  following  sect,  with  swinging  censers,  each 
fumigating  away  the  effect  of  its  predecessor. 

The  central  body  of  the  church,  answering  to 
the  nave,  as  the  rotunda,  which  contains  the  Holy 
Sepulchre,  answers  to  choir  and  apse,  is  the  Greek 
chapel,  and  the  most  magnificent  in  the  building. 
The  portion  of  the  church  set  apart  to  the  Latins, 
opening  also  out  of  the  rotunda,  is  merely  a  small 
chapel.  The  Armenians  have  still  more  contracted 
accommodations,  and  the  poor  Copts  enjoy  a  mere 
closet,  but  it  is  in  a  sacred  spot,  being  attached  to 
the  west  end  of  the  sepulchre  itself. 

On  the  western  side  of  the  rotunda  we  passed 
through  the  bare  and  apparently  uncared-for  chapel 


70  HOLY   PLACES   OF    THE   HOLY   CITY 

of  the  Syrians,  and  entered,  through  a  low  door, 
into  a  small  grotto  hewn  in  the  rock.  Lighted 
candles  revealed  to  us  some  tombs,  little  pits  cut 
in  the  rock,  two  in  the  side-wall  and  two  in  the 
floor.  We  had  a  guide  who  knew  every  sacred 
spot  in  the  city,  a  man  who  never  failed  to  satisfy 
the  curiosity  of  the  most  credulous  tourist. 

"Whose  tombs  are  these?  "  we  asked. 

"That  is  the  tomb  of  Joseph  of  Arimathea,  and 
that  beside  it  is  the  tomb  of  Nicodeinus." 

"How  do  you  know?  " 

"How  do  I  know?  You  ask  me  how  I  know. 
Have  n't  I  always  lived  in  Jerusalem?  I  was  born 
here." 

"Then  perhaps  you  can  tell  us,  if  this  tomb 
belonged  to  Joseph  of  Arimathea,  and  this  to 
Nicodemus,  whose  is  this  third  one?" 

"Oh  yes,  that  other,"  replied  the  guide,  with  only 
a  moment's  paralysis  of  his  invention,  "that  is  the 
tomb  of  Arimathea  himself." 

One  afternoon  at  four,  service  was  going  on  in 
the  Greek  chapel,  which  shone  with  silver  and 
blazed  with  tapers,  and  was  crowded  with  pilgrims, 
principally  Russians  of  both  sexes,  many  of  whom 
had  made  a  painful  pilgrimage  of  more  than  two 
thousand  miles  on  foot  merely  to  prostrate  them- 
selves in  this  revered  place.  A  Russian  bishop 
and  a  priest,  in  the  resplendent  robes  of  their 
office,  were  intoning  the  service  responsively.  In 
the  very  centre  of  this  chapel  is  a  round  hole  cov- 
ered with  a  grating,  and  tapers  are  generally  burn- 
ing about  it.  All  the  pilgrims  kneeled  there,  and 


CHURCH    OF   THE    HOLY   SEPULCHRE 


A    BLITHE   BEGGAR  71 

kissed  the  grating  and  adored  the  hole.  I  had  the 
curiosity  to  push  my  way  through  the  throng  in 
order  to  see  the  object  of  devotion,  but  I  could 
discover  nothing.  It  is,  however,  an  important 
spot :  it  is  the  centre  of  the  earth;  though  why 
Christians  should  worship  the  centre  of  the  earth 
I  do  not  know.  The  Armenians  have  in  their 
chapel  also  a  spot  that  they  say  is  the  real  centre; 
that  makes  three  that  we  know  of,  for  everybody 
understands  that  there  is  one  in  the  Kaaba  at 
Mecca. 

We  sat  down  upon  a  stone  bench  near  the  en- 
trance of  the  chapel,  where  we  could  observe  the 
passing  streams  of  people,  and  were  greatly  di- 
verted by  a  blithe  and  comical  beggar  who  had 
stationed  himself  on  the  pavement  there  to  inter- 
cept the  Greek  charity  of  the  worshipers  when 
they  passed  into  the  rotunda.  He  was  a  diminu- 
tive man  with  distorted  limbs ;  he  wore  a  peaked 
red  cap,  and  dragged  himself  over  the  pavement, 
or  rather  skipped  and  flopped  about  on  it  like  a 
devil-fish  on  land.  Never  was  seen  in  a  beggar 
such  vivacity  and  imperturbable  good-humor,  with 
so  much  deviltry  in  his  dancing  eyes. 

As  we  appeared  to  him  to  occupy  a  neutral  posi- 
tion as  to  him  and  his  victims,  he  soon  took  us 
into  his  confidence  and  let  us  see  his  mode  of  op- 
erations. He  said  (to  our  guide)  that  he  was  a 
Greek  from  Damascus,  —  oh  yes,  a  Christian,  a 
pilgrim,  who  always  came  down  here  at  this  sea- 
son, which  was  his  harvest-time.  He  hoped  (with 
a  wicked  wink)  that  his  devotion  would  be  re- 
warded. 


72  HOLY   PLACES   OF   THE   HOLY   CITY 

It  was  very  entertaining  to  see  him  watch  the 
people  coming  out,  and  select  his  victims,  whom 
he  would  indicate  to  us  by  a  motion  of  his  head  as 
he  flopped  towards  them.  He  appeared  to  rely  more 
upon  the  poor  and  simple  than  upon  the  rich,  and 
he  was  more  successful  with  the  former.  But 
he  rarely,  such  was  his  insight,  made  a  mistake. 
Whoever  gave  him  anything  he  thanked  with  the 
utmost  empressement  of  manner ;  then  he  crossed 
himself,  and  turned  around  and  winked  at  us,  his 
confederates.  When  an  elegantly  dressed  lady 
dropped  the  smallest  of  copper  coins  into  his  cap, 
he  let  us  know  his  opinion  of  her  by  a  significant 
gesture  and  a  shrug  of  his  shoulders.  But  no  mat- 
ter from  whom  he  received  it,  whenever  he  added 
a  penny  to  his  store  the  rascal  chirped  and  laughed 
and  caressed  himself.  He  was  in  the  way  of  being 
trodden  under  foot  by  the  crowd;  but  his  agility 
was  extraordinary,  and  I  should  not  have  been 
surprised  at  any  moment  if  he  had  vaulted  over  the 
heads  of  the  throng  and  disappeared.  If  he  failed 
to  attract  the  attention  of  an  eligible  pilgrim,  he 
did  not  hesitate  to  give  the  skirt  of  his  elect  a  jerk, 
for  which  rudeness  he  would  at  once  apologize  with 
an  indescribable  grimace  and  a  joke. 

When  the  crowd  had  passed,  he  slid  himself  into 
a  corner,  by  a  motion  such  as  that  with  which  a 
fish  suddenly  darts  to  one  side,  and  set  himself  to 
empty  his  pocket  into  his  cap  and  count  his  plun- 
der, tossing  the  pieces  into  the  air  and  catching 
them  with  a  chuckle,  crossing  himself  and  hugging 
himself  by  turns.  He  had  four  francs  and  a  half. 


THE   CHAPEL   OF   THE   APPARITION  73 

When  he  had  finished  counting  his  money  he  put 
it  in  a  bag,  and  for  a  moment  his  face  assumed  a 
grave  and  business-like  expression.  We  thought 
he  would  depart  without  demanding  anything  of 
us.  But  we  were  mistaken ;  he  had  something  in 
view  that  he  no  doubt  felt  would  insure  him  a 
liberal  backsheesh.  Wriggling  near  to  us,  he  set 
his  face  into  an  expression  of  demure  humility, 
held  out  his  cap,  and  said,  in  English,  each  word 
falling  from  his  lips  as  distinctly  and  unnaturally 
as  if  he  had  been  a  wooden  articulating  machine,  — 

"  Come  unto  me  all  ye  that  labor  and  are  heavy 
laden,  and  /will  give  you  rest." 

The  rascal's  impiety  lessened  the  charity  which 
our  intimacy  with  him  had  intended,  but  he  ap- 
peared entirely  content,  chirped,  saluted  with 
gravity,  and,  with  a  flop,  was  gone  from  our  sight. 

At  the  moment,  a  procession  of  Franciscan 
monks  swept  by,  chanting  in  rich  bass  voices,  and 
followed,  as  usual,  by  Latin  pilgrims,  making  the 
daily  round  of  the  holy  places ;  after  they  had 
disappeared  we  could  still  hear  their  voices  and 
catch  now  and  again  the  glimmer  of  their  tapers 
in  the  vast  dark  spaces. 

Opposite  the  place  where  we  were  sitting  is  the 
Chapel  of  the  Apparition,  a  room  not  much  more 
than  twenty  feet  square;  it  is  the  Latin  chapel, 
and  besides  its  contiguity  to  the  sepulchre  has 
some  specialties  of  its  own.  The  chapel  is  prob- 
ably eight  hundred  years  old.  In  the  centre  of  the 
pavement  is  the  spot  upon  which  our  Lord  stood 
when  he  appeared  to  the  Virgin  after  the  resur- 


74  HOLY   PLACES   OP   THE   HOLY   CITY 

rection ;  near  it  a  slab  marks  the  place  where  the 
three  crosses  were  laid  after  they  were  dug  up  by 
Helena,  and  where  the  one  on  which  our  Lord  was 
crucified  was  identified  by  the  miracle  that  it 
worked  in  healing  a  sick  man.  South  of  the  altar 
is  a  niche  in  the  wall,  now  covered  over,  but  a 
round  hole  is  left  in  the  covering.  I  saw  pilgrims 
thrust  a  long  stick  into  this  hole,  withdraw  it,  and 
kiss  the  end.  The  stick  had  touched  a  fragment 
of  the  porphyry  column  to  which  the  Saviour  was 
bound  when  he  was  scourged. 

In  the  semicircle  at  the  east  end  of  the  nave  are 
several  interesting  places :  the  prison  where  Christ 
was  confined  before  his  execution,  a  chapel  dedi- 
cated to  the  centurion  who  pierced  the  side  of  our 
Lord,  and  the  spot  on  which  the  vestments  were 
divided.  From  thence  we  descend,  by  a  long  flight 
of  steps  partly  hewn  in  the  rock,  to  a  rude,  crypt- 
like  chapel,  in  the  heavy  early  Byzantine  style,  a 
damp,  cheerless  place,  called  the  Chapel  of  Helena. 
At  the  east  end  of  it  another  flight  of  steps  leads 
down  into  what  was  formerly  a  cistern,  but  is  now 
called  the  Chapel  of  the  Invention  of  the  Cross. 
Here  the  cross  was  found,  and  at  one  side  of  the 
steps  stands  the  marble  chair  in  which  the  mother 
of  Constantine  sat  while  she  superintended  the  dig- 
ging. Nothing  is  wanting  that  the  most  cred- 
ulous pilgrim  could  wish  to  see ;  that  is,  nothing 
is  wanting  in  spots  where  things  were.  This 
chapel  belongs  to  the  Latins ;  that  of  Helena  to  the 
Greeks;  the  Abyssinian  convent  is  above  both  of 
them. 


GOLGOTHA  75 

On  the  south  side  of  the  church,  near  the  en- 
trance, is  a  dark  room  called  the  Chapel  of  Adam, 
in  which  there  is  never  more  light  than  a  feeble 
taper  can  give.  I  groped  my  way  into  it  often,  in 
the  hope  of  finding  something ;  perhaps  it  is  pur- 
posely involved  in  an  obscurity  typical  of  the  ori- 
gin of  mankind.  There  is  a  tradition  that  Adam 
was  buried  on  Golgotha,  but  the  only  tomb  in  this 
chapel  is  that  of  Melchizedek !  The  chapel  for- 
merly contained  that  of  Godfrey  de  Bouillon, 
elected  the  first  king  of  Jerusalem  in  1099,  and  of 
Baldwin,  his  brother.  We  were  shown  the  two- 
handed  sword  of  Godfrey,  with  which  he  clove  a 
Saracen  lengthwise  into  two  equal  parts,  a  gen- 
uine relic  of  a  heroic  and  barbarous  age.  At  the 
end  of  this  chapel  a  glimmering  light  lets  us  see 
through  a  grating  a  crack  in  the  rock  made  by  the 
earthquake  at  the  crucifixion. 

The  gloom  of  this  mysterious  chapel,  which  is 
haunted  by  the  spectre  of  that  dim  shadow  of 
unreality,  Melchizedek,  prepared  us  to  ascend  to 
Golgotha,  above  it.  The  chapels  of  Golgotha  are 
supported  partly  upon  a  rock  which  rises  fifteen 
feet  above  the  pavement  of  the  church.  The  first 
is  that  of  the  Elevation  of  the  Cross,  and  belongs 
to  the  Greeks.  Under  the  altar  at  the  east  end  is 
a  hole  in  the  marble,  which  is  over  the  hole  in  the 
rock  in  which  the  cross  stood;  on  either  side  of  it 
are  the  holes  of  the  crosses  of  the  two  thieves. 
The  altar  is  rich  with  silver  and  gold  and  jewels. 
The  chamber,  when  we  entered  it,  was  blazing  with 
light,  and  Latin  monks  were  performing  their 


76  HOLY   PLACES    OF  THE   HOLY   CITY 

adorations,  with  chanting  and  swinging  of  incense, 
before  the  altar.  A  Greek  priest  stood  at  one 
side,  watching  them,  and  there  was  plain  contempt 
in  his  face.  The  Greek  priests  are  not  wanting  in 
fanaticism,  but  they  never  seem  to  me  to  possess 
the  faith  of  the  Latin  branch  of  the  Catholic 
Church.  When  the  Latins  had  gone,  the  Greek 
took  us  behind  the  altar,  and  showed  us  another 
earthquake-rent  in  the  rock. 

Adjoining  this  chapel  is  the  Latin  Chapel  of  the 
Crucifixion,  marking  the  spot  where  Christ  was 
nailed  to  the  cross ;  from  that  we  looked  through  a 
window  into  an  exterior  room  dedicated  to  the  Sor- 
rowing Virgin,  where  she  stood  and  beheld  the 
crucifixion.  Both  these  latter  rooms  do  not  rest 
upon  the  rock,  but  upon  artificial  vaults,  and  of 
course  can  mark  the  spots  commemorated  by  them 
only  in  space. 

Perhaps  this  sensation  of  being  in  the  air,  and 
of  having  no  standing-place  even  for  tradition, 
added  something  to  the  strange  feeling  that  took 
possession  of  me;  a  mingled  feeling  that  was  no 
more  terror  than  is  the  apprehension  that  one 
experiences  at  a  theatre  from  the  manufactured 
thunder  behind  the  scenes.  I  suppose  it  arose 
from  cross  currents  meeting  in  the  mind,  the 
thought  of  the  awful  significance  of  the  events  here 
represented  and  the  sight  of  this  theatrical  represen- 
tation. The  dreadful  name,  Golgotha,  the  gloom 
of  this  part  of  the  building,  —  a  sort  of  mount  of 
darkness,  with  its  rent  rock  and  preternatural 
shadow,  —  the  blazing  contrast  of  the  chapel  where 


SINCERITY   OF   THE   PILGRIMS  77 

the  cross  stood  with  the  dark  passages  about  it,  the 
chanting  and  flashing  lights  of  pilgrims  ever  com- 
ing and  going,  the  neighborhood  of  the  sepulchre 
itself,  were  well  calculated  to  awaken  an  imagi- 
nation the  least  sensitive.  And,  so  susceptible  is 
the  mind  to  the  influence  of  that  mental  electricity 
—  if  there  is  no  better  name  for  it  —  which  pro- 
ceeds from  a  mass  of  minds  having  one  thought 
(and  is  sometimes  called  public  opinion),  be  it  true 
or  false,  that  whatever  one  may  believe  about  the 
real  location  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre,  he  cannot  wit- 
ness, unmoved,  the  vast  throng  of  pilgrims  to  these 
shrines,  representing  as  they  do  every  section  of 
the  civilized  and  of  the  uncivilized  world  into 
which  a  belief  in  the  cross  has  penetrated.  The 
undoubted  sincerity  of  the  majority  of  the  pilgrims 
who  worship  here  makes  us  for  the  time  forget  the 
hundred  inventions  which  so  often  allure  and  as 
often  misdirect  that  worship. 

The  Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre  offers  at  all 
times  a  great  spectacle,  and  one  always  novel,  in 
the  striking  ceremonies  and  the  people  who  assist 
at  them.  One  of  the  most  extraordinary,  that  of 
the  Holy  Fire,  at  the  Greek  Easter,  which  is  three 
weeks  later  than  the  Koman,  and  which  has  been 
so  often  described,  we  did  not  see.  I  am  not  sure 
that  we  saw  even  all  the  thirty-seven  holy  places 
and  objects  in  the  church.  It  may  not  be  unprofit- 
able to  set  down  those  I  can  recall.  They  are,  — 

The  Stone  of  Unction. 

The  spot  where  the  Virgin  Mary  stood  when  the 
body  of  our  Lord  was  anointed. 


78  HOLY   PLACES   OP   THE   HOLY   CITY 

The  Holy  Sepulchre. 

The  stone  on  which  the  angel  sat. 

The  tombs  of  Joseph  of  Arimathea  and  Nicode- 
mus. 

The  well  of  Helena. 

The  stone  marking  the  spot  where  Christ  in  the 
form  of  a  gardener  appeared  to  Mary  Magdalene. 

The  spot  where  Mary  Magdalene  stood. 

The  spot  where  our  Lord  appeared  to  the  Virgin 
after  his  resurrection. 

The  place  where  the  true  cross,  discovered  by 
Helena,  was  laid,  and  identified  by  a  miracle. 

The  fragment  of  the  Column  of  Flagellation. 

The  prison  of  our  Lord. 

The  "Bonds  of  Christ,"  a  stone  with  two  holes 
in  it. 

The  place  where  the  title  on  the  cross  was  pre- 
served. 

The  place  of  the  division  of  the  vestments. 

The  centre  of  the  earth  (Greek). 

The  centre  of  the  earth  (Armenian). 

The  altar  of  the  centurion  who  pierced  the  body 
of  Christ. 

The  altar  of  the  penitent  thief. 

The  Chapel  of  Helena. 

The  chair  in  which  Helena  sat  when  the  cross 
was  found. 

The  spot  where  the  cross  was  found. 

The  Chapel  of  the  Mocking,  with  a  fragment  of 
the  column  upon  which  Jesus  sat  when  they  crowned 
him  with  thorns. 

The  Chapel  of  the  Elevation  of  the  Cross. 


THE   THIRTY-SEVEN    HOLY    OBJECTS  79 

The  spot  where  the  cross  stood. 

The  spots  where  the  crosses  of  the  thieves  stood. 

The  rent  rock  near  the  cross. 

The  spot  where  Christ  was  nailed  to  the  cross. 

The  spot  where  the  Virgin  stood  during  the  cru- 
cifixion. 

The  Chapel  of  Adam. 

The  tomb  of  Melchizedek. 

The  rent  rock  in  the  Chapel  of  Adam. 

The  spots  where  the  tombs  of  Godfrey  and  Bald- 
win stood. 

No,  we  did  not  see  them  all.  Besides,  there 
used  to  be  a  piece  of  the  cross  in  the  Latin  chapel ; 
but  the  Armenians  are  accused  of  purloining  it. 
All  travelers,  I  suppose,  have  seen  the  celebrated 
Iron  Crown  of  Lombardy,  which  is  kept  in  the 
church  at  Monza,  near  Milan.  It  is  all  of  gold 
except  the  inner  band,  which  is  made  of  a  nail  of 
the  cross  brought  from  Jerusalem  by  Helena.  The 
Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre  has  not  all  the  relics 
it  might  have,  but  it  is  as  rich  in  them  as  any 
church  of  its  age. 

A  place  in  Jerusalem  almost  as  interesting  to 
Christians  as  the  Holy  Sepulchre,  and  more  inter- 
esting to  antiquarians,  is  the  Harem,  or  Temple 
area,  with  its  ancient  substructions  and  its  re- 
splendent Saracenic  architecture.  It  is  largely  an 
open  place,  green  with  grass ;  it  is  clean  and  whole- 
some, and  the  sun  lies  lovingly  on  it.  There  is  no 
part  of  the  city  where  the  traveler  would  so  like 
to  wander  at  will,  to  sit  and  muse,  to  dream  away 
the  day  on  the  walls  overhanging  the  valley  of  the 


80  HOLY    PLACES    OF    THE    HOLY    CITY 

Kidron,  to  recall  at  leisure  all  the  wonderful  story 
of  its  splendor  and  its  disaster.  But  admission  to 
the  area  is  had  only  by  special  permit.  There- 
fore the  ordinary  tourist  goes  not  so  much  as  he 
desires  to  the  site  of  the  Temple  that  Solomon 
built,  and  of  the  porch  where  Jesus  walked  and 
talked  with  his  disciples.  When  he  does  go,  he 
feels  that  he  treads  upon  firm  historical  ground. 

We  walked  down  the  gutter  (called  street)  of 
David;  we  did  not  enter  the  Harem  area  by  the 
Bab  es-Silsileh  (Gate  of  the  Chain),  but  turned 
northward  and  went  in  by  the  Bab  el-Katanin 
(Gate  of  the  Cotton-Merchants),  which  is  identified 
with  the  Beautiful  Gate  of  the  Temple.  Both 
these  gates  have  twisted  columns  and  are  graceful 
examples  of  Saracenic  architecture.  As  soon  as 
we  entered  the  gate,  the  splendor  of  the  area  burst 
upon  us ;  we  passed  instantly  out  of  the  sordid  city 
into  a  green  plain,  out  of  which  —  it  could  have 
been  by  a  magic  wand  only  —  had  sprung  the  most 
charming  creations  in  stone :  minarets,  domes,  col- 
onnades, cloisters,  pavilions,  columns  of  all  orders, 
horseshoe  arches  and  pointed  arches,  every  joyous 
architectural  thought  expressed  in  shining  marble 
and  brilliant  color. 

Our  dragoman,  Abd-el-Atti,  did  the  honors  of 
the  place  with  the  air  of  proprietorship.  For  the 
first  time  in  the  Holy  City  he  felt  quite  at  home, 
and  appeared  to  be  on  the  same  terms  with  the 
Temple  area  that  he  is  with  the  tombs  of  the  Pha- 
raohs. The  Christian  antiquities  are  too  much 
for  him,  but  his  elastic  mind  expands  readily  to 


THE    TEMPLE   AREA  81 

all  the  marvels  of  the  Moslem  situation.  The 
Moslems,  indeed,  consider  that  they  have  a  much 
better  right  to  the  Temple  than  the  Christians, 
and  Abd-el-Atti  acted  as  our  cicerone  in  the  pre- 
cincts with  all  the  delight  of  a  boy  and  with  the 
enthusiasm  of  faith.  It  was  not  unpleasant  to 
him,  either,  to  have  us  see  that  he  was  treated 
with  consideration  by  the  mosque  attendants  and 
ulemas,  and  that  he  was  well  known  and  could 
pass  readily  into  the  most  reserved  places.  He 
had  said  his  prayers  that  morning,  at  twelve,  in 
this  mosque,  a  privilege  only  second  to  that  of 
praying  in  the  mosque  at  Mecca,  and  was  in  high 
spirits,  as  one  who  had  (if  the  expression  is  allow- 
able) got  a  little  ahead  in  the  matter  of  devotion. 

Let  me  give  in  a  few  words,  without  any  quali- 
fications of  doubt,  what  seem  to  be  the  well-ascer- 
tained facts  about  this  area.  It  is  at  present  a 
level  piece  of  ground  (in  the  nature  of  a  platform, 
since  it  is  sustained  on  all  sides  by  walls),  a  quad- 
rilateral with  its  sides  not  quite  parallel,  about 
fifteen  hundred  feet  long  by  one  thousand  feet 
broad.  The  northern  third  of  it  was  covered  by 
the  Fortress  of  Antonia,  an  ancient  palace  and 
fortress,  rebuilt  with  great  splendor  by  Herod. 
The  small  remains  of  it  in  the  northeast  corner 
are  now  barracks. 

This  level  piece  of  ground  is  nearly  all  artificial, 
either  filled  in  or  built  up  on  arches.  The  original 
ground  (Mount  Moriah)  was  a  rocky  hill,  the  sum- 
mit of  which  was  the  rock  about  which  there  has 
been  so  much  controversy.  Near  the  centre  of  this 


82  HOLY    PLACES    OF   THE   HOLY    CITY 

ground,  and  upon  a  broad  raised  platform,  paved 
with  marble,  stands  the  celebrated  mosque  Kubbet 
es-Sukhrah,  "The  Dome  of  the  Rock."  It  is 
built  over  the  Sacred  Rock. 

This  rock  marks  the  site  of  the  threshing-floor 
of  Oman,  the  Jebusite,  which  David  bought, 
purchasing  at  the  same  time  the  whole  of  Mount 
Moriah.  Solomon  built  the  Temple  over  this 
rock,  and  it  was  probably  the  "stone  of  sacrifice." 
At  the  time  Solomon  built  the  Temple,  the  level 
place  on  Moriah  was  scarcely  large  enough  for  the 
naos  of  that  building,  and  Solomon  extended  the 
ground  to  the  east  and  south  by  erecting  arches 
and  filling  in  on  top  of  them,  and  constructing 
a  heavy  retaining-wall  outside.  On  the  east  side 
also  he  built  a  porch,  or  magnificent  colonnade, 
which  must  have  produced  a  fine  effect  of  Oriental 
grandeur  when  seen  from  the  deep  valley  below  or 
from  the  Mount  of  Olives  opposite. 

To  this  roch  the  Jews  used  to  come,  in  the 
fourth  century,  and  anoint  it  with  oil,  and  wail 
over  it,  as  the  site  of  the  Temple.  On  it  once 
stood  a  statue  of  Hadrian.  When  the  Moslems 
captured  Jerusalem,  it  became,  what  it  has  ever 
since  been,  one  of  their  most  venerated  places. 
The  Khalif  Omar  cleared  away  the  rubbish  from 
it,  and  built  over  it  a  mosque.  The  Khalif  Abd- 
el-Melek  began  to  rebuild  it  in  A.  D.  686.  Dur- 
ing the  Crusades  it  was  used  as  a  Christian  church. 
Allowing  for  decay  and  repairs,  the  present  mosque 
is  probably  substantially  that  built  by  Abd-el- 
Melek. 


FAIRY-LIKE   BUILDINGS  83 

At  the  extreme  south  of  the  area  is  the  vast 
Mosque  of  Aksa,  a  splendid  basilica  with  seven 
aisles,  which  may  or  may  not  be  the  Church  of  St. 
Mary  built  by  Justinian  in  the  sixth  century; 
architects  differ  about  it.  This  question  it  seems 
to  me  very  difficult  to  decide  from  the  architecture 
of  the  building,  because  of  the  habit  that  Chris- 
tians and  Moslems  both  had  of  appropriating  col- 
umns and  capitals  of  ancient  structures  in  their 
buildings ;  and  because  the  Moslems  at  that  time 
used  both  the  round  and  the  pointed  arch. 

This  platform  is  beyond  all  comparison  the  most 
beautiful  place  in  Jerusalem,  and  its  fairy-like 
buildings,  when  seen  from  the  hill  opposite,  give 
to  the  city  its  chief  claim  to  Oriental  picturesque- 
ness. 

The  dome  of  the  mosque  Kubbet  es-Sukhrah  is 
perhaps  the  most  beautiful  in  the  world;  it  seems 
to  float  in  the  air  like  a  blown  bubble;  this  effect 
is  produced  by  a  slight  drawing  in  of  the  base. 
This  contraction  of  the  dome  is  not  sufficient  to 
give  the  spectator  any  feeling  of  insecurity,  or  to 
belittle  this  architectural  marvel  to  the  likeness  of 
a  big  toy ;  the  builder  hit  the  exact  mean  between 
massiveness  and  expanding  lightness.  The  mosque 
is  octagonal  in  form,  and  although  its  just  propor- 
tions make  it  appear  small,  it  is  a  hundred  and 
fifty  feet  in  diameter;  outside  and  in,  it  is  a  blaze 
of  color  in  brilliant  marbles,  fine  mosaics,  stained 
glass,  and  beautiful  Saracenic  tiles.  The  lower 
part  of  the  exterior  wall  is  covered  witlt  colored 
marbles  in  intricate  patterns ;  above  are  pointed 


84 

windows  with  stained  glass;  and  the  spaces  be- 
tween the  windows  are  covered  by  glazed  tiles, 
with  arabesque  designs  and  very  rich  in  color.  In 
the  interior,  which  has  all  the  soft  warmth  and 
richness  of  Persian  needlework,  are  two  corridors, 
with  rows  of  columns  and  pillars;  within  the  in- 
ner row  is  the  Sacred  Rock. 

This  rock,  which  is  the  most  remarkable  stone 
in  the  world,  if  half  we  hear  of  it  be  true,  and 
which  by  a  singular  fortune  is  sacred  to  three  re- 
ligions, is  an  irregular  boulder,  standing  some  five 
feet  above  ,the  pavement,  and  is  something  like 
sixty  feet  long.  In  places  it  has  been  chiseled, 
steps  are  cut  on  one  side,  and  various  niches  are 
hewn  in  it;  a  round  hole  pierces  it  from  top  to 
bottom.  The  rock  is  limestone,  a  little  colored 
with  iron,  and  beautiful  in  spots  where  it  has  been 
polished.  One  would  think  that  by  this  time  it 
ought  to  be  worn  smooth  all  over. 

If  we  may  believe  the  Moslems  and  doubt  our 
own  senses,  this  rock  is  suspended  in  the  air,  hav- 
ing no  support  on  any  side.  It  was  to  this  rock 
that  Mohammed  made  his  midnight  journey  on  El 
Burak;  it  was  from  here  that  he  ascended  into 
Paradise,  an  excursion  that  occupied  him  alto- 
gether only  forty  minutes.  It  is,  I  am  inclined  to 
think,  the  miraculous  suspension  of  this  stone  that 
is  the  basis  of  the  Christian  fable  of  the  suspension 
of  Mohammed's  coffin, — a  miracle  unknown  to 
all  Moslems  of  whom  I  have  inquired  concerning  it. 

"Abd-el-Atti,"  I  said,  "does  this  rock  rest  on 
nothing?" 


THE   NOBLE   CAVE  85 

"So  I  have  hunderstood ;  thira  say  so." 

"But  do  you  believe  it?" 

"  When  I  read  him,  I  believe ;  when  I  come  and 
see  him,  I  can't  help  what  I  see." 

At  the  south  end  of  the  rock  we  descended  a 
flight  of  steps  and  stood  under  the  rock  in  what  is 
called  the  Noble  Cave,  a  small  room  about  six  feet 
high,  plastered  and  whitewashed.  This  is  sup- 
posed to  be  the  sink  into  which  the  blood  of  the 
Jewish  sacrifices  drained.  The  plaster  and  white- 
wash hide  the  original  rock,  and  give  the  Moslems 
the  opportunity  to  assert  that  there  is  no  rock 
foundation  under  the  big  stone. 

"But,"  we  said  to  Abd-ei-Atti,  "if  this  rock 
hangs  in  the  air,  why  cannot  we  see  all  around  it? 
Why  these  plaster  walls  that  seem  to  support  it?  " 

"So  him  used  to  be.  This  done  so,  I  hear,  on 
account  of  do  women.  Thim  come  here,  see  this 
rock,  thim  berry  much  frightened.  Der  little 
shild,  what  you  call  it,  get  born  in  de  world  before 
him  wanted.  So  thim  make  this  wall  under  it." 

There  are  four  altars  in  this  cave,  one  of  them 
dedicated  to  David;  here  the  Moslem  prophets, 
Abraham,  David,  Solomon,  and  Jesus,  used  to 
pray.  In  the  rock  is  a  round  indentation  made 
by  Mohammed's  head  when  he  first  attempted  to 
rise  to  heaven ;  near  it  is  the  hole  through  which 
ho  rose.  On  the  upper  southeast  corner  of  the 
rock  is  the  print  of  the  prophet's  foot,  and  close 
to  it  the  print  of  the  hand  of  the  angel  Michael, 
who  held  the  rock  down  from  following  Moham- 
med into  the  skies. 


86  HOLT   PLACES   OF   THE   HOLY   CITT 

In  the  mosque  above,  Abd-el-Atti  led  us,  with 
much  solemnity,  to  a  small  stone  set  in  the  pave- 
ment near  the  north  entrance.  It  was  perforated 
with  holes,  in  some  of  which  were  brass  nails. 

"How  many  holes  you  make  'em  there?" 

"Thirteen." 

"How  many  got  nails?" 

"Four." 

"Not  so  many.  Only  three  and  a  half  nails. 
Used  to  be  thirteen  nails.  Now  only  three  and  a 
half.  When  these  gone,  then  the  world  come  to 
an  end.  I  t'ink  it  not  berry  long." 

"I  should  think  the  Moslems  would  watch  this 
stone  very  carefully." 

"What  difference?  You  not  t'ink  it  come  when 
de  time  come?  " 

We  noticed  some  pieces  of  money  on  the  stone, 
and  asked  why  that  was. 

"Whoever  he  lay  backsheesh  on  this  stone,  he 
certain  to  go  into  Paradise,  and  be  took  by  our 
prophet  in  his  bosom." 

We  wandered  for  some  time  about  the  green 
esplanade,  dotted  with  cypress-trees,  and  admired 
the  little  domes:  the  Dome  of  the  Spirits,  the 
dome  that  marks  the  spot  where  David  sat  in  judg- 
ment, etc. ;  some  of  them  cover  cisterns  and  res- 
ervoirs in  the  rock  as  old  as  the  foundations  of 
the  Temple. 

In  the  corridor  of  the  Mosque  of  Aksa  are  two 
columns  standing  close  together,  and  like  those  at 
the  Mosque  of  Omar,  in  Cairo,  they  are  a  test 
of  character;  it  is  said  that  whoever  can  squeeze 


MOSLEM    TESTS    OF   CHARACTER  87 

between  them  is  certain  of  Paradise,  and  must,  of 
course,  be  a  good  Moslem.  I  suppose  that  when 
this  test  was  established  the  Moslems  were  all  lean. 
A  black  stone  is  set  in  the  wall  of  the  porch ;  who- 
ever can  walk,  with  closed  eyes,  across  the  porch 
pavement  and  put  his  finger  on  this  stone  may  be 
sure  of  entering  Paradise.  According  to  this  crit- 
erion, the  writer  of  this  is  one  of  the  elect  of  the 
Mohammedan  Paradise  and  his  dragoman  is  shut 
out.  We  were  shown  in  this  mosque  the  print  of 
Christ's  foot  in  a  stone ;  and  it  is  said  that  with 
faith  one  can  feel  in  it,  as  he  can  in  that  of  Mo- 
hammed's in  the  rock,  the  real  flesh.  Opening 
from  this  mosque  is  the  small  Mosque  of  Omar,  on 
the  spot  where  that  zealous  khalif  prayed. 

The  massive  pillared  substructions  under  Aksa 
are  supposed  by  Moslems  to  be  of  Solomon's  time. 
That  wise  monarch  had  dealings  with  the  invisible, 
and  no  doubt  controlled  the  genii,  who  went  and 
came  and  built  and  delved  at  his  bidding.  Abd- 
el-Atti,  with  haste  and  an  air  of  mystery,  drew 
me  along  under  the  arches  to  the  window  in  the 
south  end,  and  showed  me  the  opening  of  a  passage 
under  the  wall,  now  half  choked  up  with  stones. 
This  is  the  beginning  of  a  subterranean  passage 
made  by  the  prophet  Solomon,  that  extends  all 
the  way  to  Hebron,  and  has  an  issue  in  the  mosque 
over  the  tomb  of  Abraham.  This  fact  is  known 
only  to  Moslems,  and  to  very  few  of  them,  and  is 
considered  one  of  the  great  secrets.  Before  I  was 
admitted  to  share  it,  I  am  glad  that  I  passed  be- 
tween the  two  columns,  and  touched,  with  my  eyes 
shut,  the  black  stone. 


88  HOLY   PLACES   OF   THE   HOLY   CITY 

In  the  southeast  corner  of  the  Harem  is  a  little 
building  called  the  Mosque  of  Jesus.  We  passed 
through  it,  and  descended  the  stairway  into  what 
is  called  Solomon's  Stables,  being  shown  on  our 
way  a  stone  trough  which  is  said  to  be  the  cradle 
of  the  infant  Jesus.  These  so-called  stables  are 
subterranean  Vaults,  built,  110  doubt,  to  sustain  the 
south  end  of  the  Temple  platform.  We  saw  fif- 
teen rows  of  massive  square  pillars  of  unequal 
sizes  and  at  unequal  distances  apart  (as  if  intended 
for  supports  that  would  not  be  seen),  and  some 
forty  feet  high,  connected  by  round  arches.  We 
were  glad  to  reascend  from  this  wet  and  unpleasant 
cavern  to  the  sunshine  and  the  greensward. 

I  forgot  to  mention  the  Well  of  the  Leaf,  near 
the  entrance,  in  the  Mosque  of  Aksa,  and  the  pretty 
Moslem  legend  that  gave  it  a  name,  which  Abd-el- 
Atti  relates,  though  not  in  the  words  of  the  hand- 
book :  — 

"This  well  berry  old;  call  him  Well  of  the  Leaf; 
water  same  as  Pool  of  Solomon,  healthy  water ;  I 
like  him  very  much.  Not  so  deep  as  Bir  el-Arwah ; 
that  small  well,  you  see  it  under  the  rock;  they 
say  it  goes  down  into  Gehenna." 

"Why  is  this  called  the  Well  of  the  Leaf?  " 

"  Once,  time  of  Suleiman  [it  was  Omar],  a  friend 
of  our  prophet  come  here  to  pray,  and  when  he 
draw  water  to  wash,  he  drop  the  bucket  in  the  bot- 
tom of  the  well.  No  way  to  get  it  up,  but  he  must 
go  down.  When  he  was  on  the  bottom,  there  he 
much  surprised  by  a  door  open  in  the  ground,  and 
him  berry  cur'ous  to  see  what  it  is.  Nobody  there, 


THE    WELL    OF   THE    LEAF  89 

so  he  look  in,  and  then  walk  through  berry  fast, 
and  look  over  him  shoulder  to  the  bucket  left  in 
the  well.  The  place  where  he  was  come  was  the 
most  beautiful  garden  ever  was,  and  he  walk  long 
time  and  find  no  end,  always  more  garden,  so  cool, 
and  water  run  in  little  streams,  and  sweet  smell  of 
roses  and  jasmin,  and  little  birds  that  sing,  and 
big  trees  and  dates  and  oranges  and  palms,  more 
kind,  I  t'ink,  than  you  see  in  the  garden  of  his 
vice-royal.  When  the  man  have  been  long  time  in 
the  garden  he  begin  to  have  fright,  and  pick  a 
green  leaf  off  a  tree,  and  run  back  and  come  up 
to  his  friends.  He  show  'em  the  green  leaf,  but 
nobody  have  believe  what  he  say.  Then  they  tell 
him  story  to  the  kadi,  and  the  kadi  send  men  to 
see  the  garden  in  the  bottom  of  the  well.  They 
not  find  any,  not  find  any  door.  Then  the  kadi 
he  make  him  a  letter  to  the  Sultan  —  berry  wise 
man  —  and  he  say  (so  I  read  it  in  our  history), 
'Our  prophet  say,  One  of  my  friends  shall  walk  in 
Paradise  while  he  is  alive.  If  this  is  come  true, 
you  shall  see  the  leaf,  if  it  still  keep  green. '  Then 
the  kadi  make  examine  of  the  leaf,  and  find  him 
green.  So  it  is  believe  the  man  has  been  in 
Paradise." 

"And  do  you  believe  it?" 

"I  cannot  say  edzacly  where  him  been.  Where 
you  t'ink  he  done  got  that  leaf?  " 

Along  the  east  wall  of  the  Harem  there  are  no 
remains  of  the  long  colonnade  called  Solomon's 
Porch,  not  a  column  of  that  resplendent  marble 
pavilion  which  caught  the  first  rays  of  the  sun  over 


90  HOLY   PLACES   OF   THE   HOLY   CITY 

the  mountains  of  Moab,  and  which,  with  the  shin- 
ing temple  towering  behind  it,  must  have  presented 
a  more  magnificent  appearance  than  Babylon,  and 
have  rivaled  the  architectural  glories  of  Ba'albek. 
The  only  thing  in  this  wall  worthy  of  note  now  is 
the  Golden  Gate,  an  entrance  no  longer  used.  We 
descended  into  its  archways,  and  found  some  fine 
columns  with  composite  capitals,  and  other  florid 
stone-work  of  a  rather  tasteless  and  debased  Ro- 
man style. 

We  climbed  the  wall  by  means  of  the  steps,  a 
series  of  which  are  placed  at  intervals,  and  sat  a 
long  time  looking  upon  a  landscape,  every  foot  of 
which  is  historical.  Merely  to  look  upon  it  is  to 
recall  a  great  portion  of  the  Jewish  history  and 
the  momentous  events  in  the  brief  life  of  the  Sa- 
viour, which,  brief  as  it  was,  sufficed  to  newly  create 
the  earth.  There  is  the  Mount  of  Olives,  with  its 
commemorative  chapels,  heaps  of  stone,  and  scat- 
tered trees ;  there  is  the  ancient  foot-path  up  which 
David  fled  as  a  fugitive  by  night  from  the  conspir- 
acy of  Absalom,  what  time  Shimei,  the  relative  of 
Saul,  stoned  him  and  cursed  him ;  and  down  that 
Way  of  Triumph,  the  old  road  sweeping  round  its 
base,  came  the  procession  of  the  Son  of  David, 
in  whose  path  the  multitude  cast  their  garments 
and  branches  of  trees,  and  cried,  "  Hosanna  in  the 
highest."  There  on  those  hills,  Mount  Scopus 
and  Olivet,  were  once  encamped  the  Assyrians, 
and  again  the  Persians;  there  shone  the  eagles  of 
Rome,  borne  by  her  conquering  legions ;  and  there, 
in  turn,  Crusaders  and  Saracens  pitched  their 


TOMBS    AND   TEMPLES  91 

tents.  How  many  times  has  the  air  been  dark- 
ened with  missiles  hurled  thence  upon  this  shining 
prize,  and  how  many  armies  have  closed  in  about 
this  spot  and  swarmed  to  its  destruction!  There 
the  Valley  of  Jehoshaphat  curves  down  until  it 
is  merged  in  the  Valley  of  the  Brook  Kidron. 
There,  at  the  junction  of  the  roads  that  run  over 
and  around  Olivet,  is  a  clump  of  trees  surrounded 
by  a  white  wall;  that  is  the  Garden  of  Geth- 
semaue.  Near  it  is  the  tomb  of  Mary.  Farther 
down  you  see  the  tomb  of  Absalom,  the  tomb  of 
St.  James,  the  monolith  pyramid-tipped  tomb  of 
Zacharias  (none  of  them  apparently  as  old  as  they 
claim  to  be),  and  the  remains  of  a  little  temple,  the 
model  of  which  came  from  the  banks  of  the  Nile, 
that  Solomon  built  for  his  Egyptian  wife,  the 
daughter  of  Pharaoh,  wherein  they  worshiped  the 
gods  of  her  country.  It  is  tradition  also  that  near 
here  were  some  of  the  temples  he  built  for  others 
of  his  strange  wives:  a  temple  to  Chemosh,  the 
Moabite  god,  and  the  image  of  Moloch,  the  de- 
vourer  of  children.  Solomon  was  wiser  than  all 
men,  wiser  than  Heman,  and  Chalcol,  and  Darda, 
the  sons  of  Mahol;  his  friend  Hiram  of  Tyre  used 
to  send  riddles  to  him  which  no  one  in  the  world 
but  Solomon  could  guess;  but  his  wisdom  failed 
him  with  the  other  sex,  and  there  probably  never 
was  another  Oriental  court  so  completely  ruled  and 
ruined  by  women  as  his. 

This  valley  below  us  is  perhaps  the  most  mel- 
ancholy on  earth :  nowhere  else  is  death  so  visibly 
master  of  the  scene ;  nature  is  worn  out,  man  tired 


92     HOLY  PLACES  OF  THE  HOLY  CITY 

out;  a  gray  despair  has  settled  down  upon  the 
landscape.  Down  there  is  the  village  of  Siloam, 
a  village  of  huts  and  holes  in  the  rocks,  opposite 
the  cave  of  that  name.  If  it  were  the  abode  of 
wolves  it  would  have  a  better  character  than  it  has 
now.  There  is  the  grim  cast  of  sin  and  exhaustion 
upon  the  scene.  I  do  not  know  exactly  how  much 
of  this  is  owing  to  the  Jewish  burying-ground, 
which  occupies  so  much  of  the  opposite  hill.  The 
slope  is  thickly  shingled  with  gray  stones,  that  lie 
in  a  sort  of  regularity  which  suggests  their  pur- 
pose. You  fall  to  computing  how  many  Jews  there 
may  be  in  that  hill,  layer  upon  layer ;  for  the  most 
part  they  are  dissolved  away  into  the  earth,  but 
you  think  that  if  they  were  to  put  on  their  mortal 
bodies  and  come  forth,  the  valley  itself  would  be 
filled  with  them  almost  to  the  height  of  the  wall. 
Out  of  these  gates,  giving  upon  this  valley  of 
death,  six  hundred  thousand  bodies  of  those  who 
had  starved  were  thrown  during  the  siege,  and  long 
before  Titus  stormed  the  city.  I  do  not  wonder 
that  the  Moslems  think  of  this  frightful  vale  as 
Gehenna  itself. 

From  an  orifice  in  the  battlemented  wall  where 
we  sat  projects  a  round  column,  mounted  there 
like  a  cannon  and  perhaps  intended  to  deceive  an 
enemy  into  the  belief  that  the  wall  is  fortified.  It 
is  astride  this  column,  overhanging  this  dreadful 
valley,  that  Mohammed  will  sit  at  the  last,  the 
judgment  day.  A  line  finer  than  a  hair  and 
sharper  than  a  razor  will  reach  from  it  to  the  tower 
on  the  Mount  of  Olives,  stretching  over  the  valley 


ES-SERAT  93 

of  the  dead.  This  is  the  line  Es-Serat.  Moham- 
med will  superintend  the  passage  over  it.  For  in 
that  day  all  who  ever  lived,  risen  to  judgment, 
must  walk  this  razor-line;  the  good  will  cross  in 
safety;  the  bad  will  fall  into  hell,  that  is,  into 
Gehenna,  this  blasted  gulf  and  side-hill  below, 
thickly  sown  with  departed  Jews.  It  is  in  view 
of  this  perilous  passage  that  the  Moslem  every  day, 
during  the  ablution  of  his  feet,  prays :  "  Oh,  make 
ray  feet  not  to  slip  on  Es-Serat.  on  that  day  when 
feet  shall  slip." 


IV 


NEIGHBORHOODS    OF   JERUSALEM 

HERE  VER  we  come  upon  traces  of  the 
Knights  of  St.  John,  there  a  door  opens 
for  us  into  romance ;  the  very  name  sug- 
gests valor  and  courtesy  and  charity. 
Every  town  in  the  East  that  is  so  fortunate  as  to 
have  any  memorials  of  them,  whatever  its  other 
historic  associations,  obtains  an  additional  and 
special  fame  from  its  connection  with  this  heroic 
order.  The  city  of  Acre  recalls  the  memory  of 
their  useless  prowess  in  the  last  struggle  of  the 
Christians  to  retain  a  foothold  in  Palestine;  the 
name  of  the  Knights  of  Rhodes  brings  before  every 
traveler,  who  has  seen  it,  the  picturesque  city  in 
which  the  armorial  insignia  of  this  order  have  for 
him  a  more  living  interest  than  any  antiquities  of 
the  Grecian  Rose ;  the  island  fortress  at  the  gate 
of  the  Levant  owes  all  the  interest  we  feel  in  it 
to  the  Knights  of  Malta;  and  even  the  city  of 
David  and  of  the  Messiah  has  an  added  lustre 
&s  the  birthplace  of  the  Knights  of  St.  John  of 
Jerusalem. 

From  the  eleventh  century  to  the  fifteenth,  they 
are  the  chief  figures  who  in  that  whirlwind  of  war 


THE   KNIGHTS   OF   ST.    JOHN  95 

contested  the  possession  of  the  Levant  with  the 
Saracens  and  the  Turks.  In  the  forefront  of  every 
battle  was  seen  their  burnished  mail,  in  the  gloomy 
rear  of  every  retreat  were  heard  their  voices  of  con- 
stancy and  of  courage ;  wherever  there  were  crowns 
to  be  cracked,  or  wounds  to  be  bound  up,  or 
broken  hearts  to  be  ministered  to,  there  were  the 
Knights  of  St.  John,  soldiers,  priests,  servants, 
laying  aside  the  gown  for  the  coat  of  mail  if  need 
be,  or  exchanging  the  cuirass  for  the  white  cross 
on  the  breast.  Originally  a  charitable  order, 
dwelling  in  the  Hospital  of  St.  John  to  minister 
to  the  pilgrims  to  Jerusalem,  and  composed  of 
young  soldiers  of  Godfrey,  who  took  the  vows  of 
poverty,  chastity,  and  obedience,  they  resumed 
their  arms  upon  the  pressure  of  infidel  hostility, 
and  subsequently  divided  the  order  into  three 
classes:  soldiers,  priests,  and  servants.  They 
speedily  acquired  great  power  and  wealth;  their 
palaces,  their  fortifications,  their  churches,  are  even 
in  their  ruins  the  admiration  and  wonder  of  our 
age.  The  purity  of  the  order  was  in  time  some- 
what sullied  by  luxury,  but  their  valor  never  suf- 
fered the  slightest  eclipse ;  whether  the  field  they 
contested  was  lost  or  won,  their  bravery  always 
got  new  honor  from  it. 

Nearly  opposite  the  court  of  the  Church  of  the 
Holy  Sepulchre  is  the  green  field  of  Muristan, 
the  site  of  the  palace,  church,  and  hospital  of  the 
Knights  of  St.  John.  The  field  was,  on  an  aver- 
age, twenty-five  feet  above  the  surrounding  streets, 
and  a  portion  of  it  was  known  to  rest  upon  vaults. 


96  NEIGHBORHOODS   OF    JERUSALEM 

This  plot  of  ground  was  given  to  the  Prussian  gov- 
ernment, and  its  agents  have  been  making  excava- 
tions there ;  these  were  going  on  at  the  time  of  our 
visit.  The  disclosures  are  of  great  architectural 
and  historical  interest.  The  entrance  through  a 
peculiar  Gothic  gateway  leads  into  a  court.  Here 
the  first  excavations  were  made  several  years  ago, 
and  disclosed  some  splendid  remains :  the  apse  of 
the  costly  church,  cloisters,  fine  windows  and  arches 
of  the  best  Gothic  style.  Beyond,  the  diggings 
have  brought  to  light  some  of  the  features  of  the 
palace  and  hospital:  an  excavation  of  twenty-five 
feet  reaches  down  to  the  arches  of  the  substructure, 
which  rest  upon  pillars  from  forty  to  fifty  feet  high. 
This  gives  us  some  notion  of  the  magnificent  group 
of  buildings  that  once  occupied  this  square,  and 
also  of  the  industry  of  nature  as  an  entomber,  since 
some  four  centuries  have  sufficed  her  to  bury  these 
ruins  so  far  beneath  the  soil,  that  peasants  ploughed 
over  the  palaces  of  the  knights  without  a  suspicion 
of  what  lay  beneath. 

In  one  corner  of  this  field  stands  a  slender  min- 
aret, marking  the  spot  where  the  great  Omar  once 
said  his  prayers;  four  centuries  after  this,  Saladin 
is  said  to  have  made  his  military  headquarters 
in  the  then  deserted  palace  of  the  Knights  of  St. 
John.  There  is  no  spot  in  Jerusalem  where  one 
touches  more  springs  of  romance  than  in  this  field 
of  Muristan. 

Perhaps  the  most  interesting  and  doleful  walk 
one  can  take  near  Jerusalem  is  that  into  the  Valley 
of  Kidron  and  through  Aceldama,  round  to  the 


THE    FOUNTAIN   OF   THE   VIRGIN  97 

Jaffa  Gate,  traversing  "the  whole  valley  of  the 
dead  bodies,  and  of  the  ashes,"  in  the  cheerful 
words  of  Jeremiah. 

We  picked  our  way  through  the  filthy  streets 
and  on  the  slippery  cobble-stones,  —  over  which  it 
seems  dangerous  to  ride  and  is  nearly  impossible 
to  walk,  —  out  through  St.  Stephen's  Gate.  Xear 
the  gate,  inside,  we  turned  into  an  alley  and 
climbed  a  heap  of  rubbish  to  see  a  pool,  which  the 
guide  insisted  upon  calling  Bethesda,  although  it 
is  Birket  Israil.  Having  seen  many  of  these  pools, 
I  did  not  expect  much,  but  I  was  still  disappointed. 
We  saw  merely  a  hole  in  the  ground,  which  is  void 
of  all  appearance  of  ever  having  been  even  damp. 
The  fact  is,  we  have  come  to  Jerusalem  too  late ; 
we  ought  to  have  been  here  about  two  thousand 
years  ago. 

The  slope  of  the  hill  outside  the  gate  is  covered 
with  the  turbaned  tombs  of  Moslems ;  we  passed 
under  the  walls  and  through  this  cemetery  into 
the  deep  valley  below,  crossing  the  bed  of  the 
brook  near  the  tombs  of  Absalom,  Jehoshaphat, 
St.  James,  and  Zacharias.  These  all  seem  to  be  of 
Roman  construction;  but  that  called  Absalom's  is 
so  firmly  believed  to  be  his  that  for  centuries  every 
Jew  who  has  passed  it  has  cast  a  stone  at  it,  and 
these  pebbles  of  hate  partially  cover  it.  We  also 
added  to  the  heap,  but  I  do  not  know  why,  for  it 
is  nearly  impossible  to  hate  any  one  who  has  been 
dead  so  long. 

The  most  interesting  phenomenon  in  the  valley 
is  the  Fountain  of  the  Virgin,  or  the  Fountain  of 


98  NEIGHBORHOODS   OF   JERUSALEM 

Accused  Women,  as  it  used  to  be  called.  The 
Moslem  tradition  is  that  it  was  a  test  of  the  un- 
faithfulness of  women ;  those  who  drank  of  it  and 
were  guilty,  died;  those  who  were  innocent  re- 
ceived no  harm.  The  Virgin  Mary  herself,  being 
accused,  accepted  this  test,  drank  of  the  water,  and 
proved  her  chastity.  Since  then  the  fountain  has 
borne  her  name.  The  fountain,  or  well,  is  in  the 
side-hill,  under  the  rocks  of  Ophel,  and  the  water 
springs  up  in  an  artificial  cave.  We  descended 
some  sixteen  steps  to  a  long  chamber,  arched  with 
ancient  masonry ;  we  passed  through  that  and  de- 
scended fourteen  steps  more  into  a  grotto,  where 
we  saw  the  water  flowing  in  and  escaping  by  a 
subterranean  passage.  About  this  fountain  were 
lounging  groups  of  Moslem  idlers,  mostly  women 
and  children.  Not  far  off  a  Moslem  was  saying 
his  prayers,  prostrating  himself  before  a  prayer- 
niche.  We  had  difficulty  in  making  our  way  down 
the  steps,  so  encumbered  were  they  with  women. 
Several  of  them  sat  upon  the  lowest  steps  in  the 
damp  cavern,  gossiping,  filling  their  water-skins, 
or  paddling  about  with  naked  feet. 

The  well,  like  many  others  in  Syria,  is  intermit- 
tent and  irregular  in  its  rising  and  falling;  some- 
times it  is  dry,  and  then  suddenly  it  bubbles  up 
and  is  full  again.  Some  scholars  think  this  is  the 
Pool  Bethesda  of  the  New  Testament,  others  think 
that  Bethesda  was  Siloam,  which  is  below  this  well 
and  fed  by  it,  and  would  exhibit  the  same  irregu- 
lar rising  and  falling.  This  intermittent  character 
St.  John  attributed  to  an  angel  who  came  down 


THE   POOL   OF   8ILOAM  99 

and  troubled  the  water;  the  Moslems,  with  the 
same  superstition,  say  that  it  is  caused  by  a  dragon 
who  sleeps  therein  and  checks  the  stream  when  he 
wakes. 

On  our  way  to  the  Pool  of  Siloam,  we  passed 
the  village  of  Siloam,  which  is  inhabited  by  about 
a  thousand  Moslems,  —  a  nest  of  stone  huts  and 
caves  clinging  to  the  side-hill,  and  exactly  the  gray 
color  of  its  stones.  The  occupation  of  the  inhab- 
itants appears  to  be  begging,  and  hunting  for  old 
copper  coins,  mites,  and  other  pieces  of  Jewish 
money.  These  relics  they  pressed  upon  us  with 
the  utmost  urgency.  It  was  easier  to  satisfy  the 
beggars  than  the  traders,  who  sallied  out  upon  us 
like  hungry  wolves  from  their  caves.  There  is  a 
great  choice  of  disagreeable  places  in  the  East,  but 
1  cannot  now  think  of  any  that  1  should  not  pre- 
fer as  a  residence  to  Siloam. 

The  Pool  of  Siloam,  magnified  in  my  infant 
mind  as  "Siloam's  shady  rill,"  is  an  unattractive 
sink-hole  of  dirty  water,  surrounded  by  modern 
masonry.  The  valley  here  is  very  stony.  Just  be- 
low we  came  to  Solomon's  Garden,  an  arid  spot, 
with  patches  of  stone-walls,  struggling  to  be  a  veg- 
etable-garden, and  somewhat  green  with  lettuce 
and  Jerusalem  artichokes.  I  have  no  doubt  it  was 
quite  another  thing  when  Solomon  and  some  of 
his  wives  used  to  walk  here  in  the  cool  of  the  day, 
and  even  when  Shallum,  the  son  of  Col-hozeh,  set 
up  "the  wall  of  the  Pool  of  Siloah  by  the  king's 
garden." 

We  continued  on,  down  to  Joab's  Well,  passing 


of  C*3ifornla»t  Loe 


100  NEIGHBORHOODS    OF   JERUSALEM 

on  the  way  Isaiah's  Tree,  a  decrepit  sycamore 
propped  up  by  a  stone  pillar,  where  that  prophet 
was  sawn  asunder.  There  is  no  end  to  the  cheer- 
ful associations  of  the  valley.  The  Well  of  Joab, 
a  hundred  and  twenty-five  feet  deep,  and  walled 
and  arched  with  fine  masonry,  has  a  great  appear- 
ance of  antiquity.  We  plucked  maiden-hair  from 
its  crevices,  and  read  the  Old  Testament  refer- 
ences. Near  it  is  a  square  pool  fed  by  its  water. 
Some  little  distance  below  this  the  waters  of  all 
these  wells,  pools,  drains,  sinks,  or  whatever  they 
are,  reappear,  bursting  up  through  a  basin  of  sand 
and  pebbles,  as  clear  as  crystal,  and  run  brawling 
off  down  the  valley  under  a  grove  of  large  olive- 
trees,  —  a  scene  rural  and  inviting. 

I  suppose  it  would  be  possible  to  trace  the  whole 
system  of  underground  water  ways  and  cisterns, 
from  Solomon's  Pool,  which  sends  its  water  into 
town  by  an  aqueduct  near  the  Jaffa  Gate,  to  Hez- 
ekiah's  Pool,  to  the  cisterns  under  the  Harem,  and 
so  out  to  the  Virgin's  Well,  the  Pool  of  Siloam, 
and  the  final  gush  of  sweet  water  below.  This 
valley  drains,  probably  artificially  as  well  as  nat- 
urally, the  whole  city,  for  no  sewers  exist  in  the 
latter. 

We  turned  back  from  this  sparkling  brook, 
which  speedily  sinks  into  the  ground  again,  ab- 
sorbed by  the  thirsty  part  of  the  valley  called 
Tophet,  and  went  up  the  Valley  of  Hinnom,  pass- 
ing under  the  dark  and  frowning  ledges  of  Acel- 
dama, honeycombed  with  tombs.  In  this  "field  of 
blood  "  a  grim  stone  structure  forms  the  front  of  a 


THE    VALLEY    OF    HINNOM  101 

natural  cave,  which  is  the  charnel-house  where  the 
dead  were  cast  pell-mell,  in  the  belief  that  the  salts 
in  the  earth  would  speedily  consume  them.  The 
path  we  travel  is  rugged,  steep,  and  incredibly 
stony.  The  whole  of  this  region  is  inexpressibly 
desolate,  worn-out,  pale,  uncanny.  The  height 
above  this  rocky  terrace,  stuffed  with  the  dead,  is 
the  Hill  of  Evil  Counsel,  where  the  Jews  took 
counsel  against  Jesus;  and  to  add  the  last  touch 
of  an  harmonious  picture,  just  above  this  Potter's 
Field  stands  the  accursed  tree  upon  which  Judas 
hanged  himself,  raising  its  gaunt  branches  against 
the  twilight  sky,  a  very  gallows-tree  to  the  im- 
agination. It  has  borne  no  fruit  since  Iscariot. 
Towards  dusk,  sometimes,  as  you  stand  on  the  wall 
by  Zion  Gate,  you  almost  fancy  you  can  see  him 
dangling  there.  It  is  of  no  use  to  tell  me  that  the 
seed  that  raised  this  tree  could  not  have  sprouted 
till  a  thousand  years  after  Judas  was  crumbled 
into  dust;  one  must  have  faith  in  something. 

This  savage  gorge,  for  the  Valley  of  Hinnom  is 
little  more  than  that  in  its  narrowest  part,  has  few 
associations  that  are  not  horrible.  Here  Solomon 
set  up  the  images  ("the  groves,"  or  the  graven 
images),  and  the  temples  for  the  lascivious  rites 
of  Ashtaroth  or  the  human  sacrifices  to  Moloch. 
Here  the  Jews,  the  kings  and  successors  of  Solo- 
mon, with  a  few  exceptions,  and  save  an  occasional 
spasmodic  sacrifice  to  Jehovah  when  calamity  made 
them  fear  him,  practiced  all  the  abominations  of 
idolatry  in  use  in  that  age.  The  Jews  had  always 
been  more  or  less  addicted  to  the  worship  of  the 


102      NEIGHBORHOODS  OF  JERUSALEM 

god  of  Ammon,  but  Solomon  first  formally  estab- 
lished it  in  Hinnom.  Jeremiah  writes  of  it  histor- 
ically, "  They  have  built  the  high  places  of  Tophet, 
which  is  in  the  valley  of  the  son  of  Hinnom,  to 
burn  their  sons  and  their  daughters  in  the  fire." 
This  Moloch  was  as  ingenious  a  piece  of  cruelty  as 
ever  tried  the  faith  of  heretics  in  later  times,  and, 
since  it  was  purely  a  means  of  human  sacrifice,  and 
not  a  means  of  grace  (as  Inquisitorial  tortures  were 
supposed  to  be),  its  use  is  conclusive  proof  of  the 
savage  barbarity  of  the  people  who  delighted  in  it. 
Moloch  was  the  monstrous  brass  image  of  a  man 
with  the  head  of  an  ox.  It  was  hollow,  and  the 
interior  contained  a  furnace  by  which  the  statue 
was  made  red-hot.  Children  —  the  offerings  to  the 
god  —  were  then  placed  in  its  glowing  arms,  and 
drums  were  beaten  to  drown  their  cries.  It  is 
painful  to  recall  these  things,  but  the  traveler 
should  always  endeavor  to  obtain  the  historical 
flavor  of  the  place  he  visits. 

Continuing  our  walks  among  the  antiquities  of 
Jerusalem,  we  went  out  of  the  Damascus  Gate,  a 
noble  battlemented  structure,  through  which  runs 
the  great  northern  highway  to  Samaria  and  Damas- 
cus. The  road,  however,  is  a  mere  path  over 
ledges  and  through  loose  stones,  fit  only  for  don- 
keys. If  Rehoboam  went  this  way  in  his  chariot 
to  visit  Jeroboam  in  Samaria,  there  must  have  ex- 
isted then  a  better  road,  or  else  the  king  endured 
hard  pounding  for  the  sake  of  the  dignity  of  his 
conveyance.  As  soon  as  we  left  the  gate  we  en- 
countered hills  of  stones  and  paths  of  the  roughest 


•Qb^aifcjHi 

-      iss«  *' 'a'    ^  '/*•«»•  ,€>i 

'a  -V       .-JWak.***       3   %KK>:ji£ 


a:  v.  JWB 

iST-  -  - ' 

JBT^BH       fii  *" 


THE   TOMB    OF   HELENA  103 

description.  There  are  several  rock  tombs  on  this 
side  of  the  city,  but  we  entered  only  one,  that 
called  by  some  the  Tombs  of  the  Kings,  and  by 
others,  with  more  reason,  the  Tomb  of  Helena,  a 
heathen  convert  to  Judaism,  who  built  this  sepul- 
chre for  herself  early  in  the  first  century.  The 
tomb,  excavated  entirely  in  the  solid  rock,  is  a 
spacious  affair,  having  a  large  court  and  orna- 
mented vestibule  and  many  chambers,  extending 
far  into  the  rock,  and  a  singular  network  of  narrow 
passages  and  recesses  for  the  deposit  of  the  dead. 
It  had  one  device  that  is  worthy  of  the  ancient 
Egyptians.  The  entrance  was  closed  by  a  heavy 
square  stone,  so  hung  that  it  would  yield  to  pres- 
sure from  without,  but  would  swing  to  its  place  by 
its  own  weight,  and  fitted  so  closely  that  it  could 
not  be  moved  from  the  inside.  If  any  thief  en- 
tered the  tomb  and  left  this  slab  unsecured,  he 
would  be  instantly  caught  in  the  trap  and  become 
a  permanent  occupant.  Large  as  the  tomb  is,  its 
execution  is  mean  compared  with  the  rock  tombs 
of  Egypt ;  but  the  exterior  stone  of  the  court,  from 
its  exposure  in  this  damp  and  variable  climate, 
appears  older  than  Egyptian  work  which  has  been 
uncovered  three  times  as  long. 

At  the  tomb  we  encountered  a  dozen  students 
from  the  Latin  convent,  fine-looking  fellows  in 
long  blue-black  gowns,  red  caps,  and  red  sashes. 
They  sat  upon  the  grass,  on  the  brink  of  the  ex- 
cavation, stringing  rosaries  and  singing  student 
songs,  with  evident  enjoyment  of  the  hour's  free- 
dom from  the  school;  they  not  only  made  a  pic- 


104  NEIGHBORHOODS    OF   JERUSALEM 

ttiresque  appearance,  but  they  impressed  us  also  as 
a  Jerusalem  group  which  was  neither  sinful  nor 
dirty.  Beyond  this  tomb  we  noticed  a  handsome 
modern  dwelling-house;  you  see  others  on  various 
eminences  outside  the  city,  and  we  noted  them  as 
the  most  encouraging  sign  of  prosperity  about 
Jerusalem. 

We  returned  over  the  hill  and  by  the  city  wall, 
passing  the  Cave  of  Jeremiah  and  the  door  in  the 
wall  that  opens  into  the  stone  quarries  of  Solomon. 
These  quarries  underlie  a  considerable  portion  of 
the  city,  and  furnished  the  stone  for  its  ancient 
buildings.  I  will  not  impose  upon  you  a  descrip- 
tion of  them;  for  it  would  be  unfair  to  send  you 
into  disagreeable  places  that  I  did  not  explore 
myself. 

The  so-called  Grotto  of  Jeremiah  is  a  natural 
cavern  in  the  rocky  hill,  vast  in  extent,  I  think 
thirty  feet  high  and  a  hundred  feet  long  by  seventy 
broad,  —  as  big  as  a  church.  The  tradition  is 
that  Jeremiah  lived  and  lamented  here.  In  front 
of  the  cave  are  cut  stones  and  pieces  of  polished 
columns  built  into  walls  and  seats ;  these  fragments 
seem  to  indicate  the  former  existence  here  of  a 
Roman  temple.  The  cave  is  occupied  by  an  old 
dervish,  who  has  a  house  in  a  rock  near  by,  and 
uses  the  cavern  as  a  cool  retreat  and  a  stable  for 
his  donkey.  His  rocky  home  is  shared  by  his 
wife  and  family.  He  said  that  it  was  better  to 
live  alone,  apart  from  the  world  and  its  snares. 
He,  however,  finds  the  reputation  of  Jeremiah 
profitable,  selling  admission  to  the  cave  at  a  franc 


PILGRIMS    OF   THE    CROSS  105 

a  head,  and,  judging-  by  the  women  and  children 
about  him,  he  seemed  to  have  family  enough  not 
to  be  lonely. 

The  sojourner  in  Jerusalem  who  does  not  care 
for  antiquities  can  always  entertain  himself  by  a 
study  of  the  pilgrims  who  throng  the  city  at  this 
season.  We  hear  more  of  the  pilgrimage  to 
Mecca  than  of  that  to  Jerusalem ;  but  I  think  the 
latter  is  the  more  remarkable  phenomenon  of  our 
modern  life ;  I  believe  it  equals  the  former,  which 
is  usually  overrated,  in  numbers,  and  it  certainly 
equals  it  in  zeal  and  surpasses  it  in  the  variety  of 
nationalities  represented.  The  pilgrims  of  the  cross 
increase  yearly ;  to  supply  their  wants,  to  minister 
to  their  credulity,  to  traffic  on  their  faith,  is  the 
great  business  of  the  Holy  City.  Few,  I  imagine, 
who  are  not  in  Palestine  in  the  spring,  have  any 
idea  of  the1  extent  of  this  vast  yearly  movement  of 
Christian  people  upon  the  Holy  Land,  or  of  the 
simple  zeal  which  characterizes  it.  If  it  were  in 
any  way  obstructed  or  hindered,  we  should  have  a 
repetition  of  the  Crusades,  on  a  vaster  scale  and 
gathered  from  a  broader  area  than  the  wildest  pil- 
grimage of  the  holy  war.  The  driblets  of  travel 
from  America  and  from  western  Europe  are  as 
nothing  in  the  crowds  thronging  to  Jerusalem  from 
Ethiopia  to  Siberia,  from  the  Baltic  to  the  Ural 
Mountains.  Already  for  a  year  before  the  Easter 
season  have  they  been  on  foot,  slowly  pushing  their 
way  across  great  steppes,  through  snows  and  over 
rivers,  crossing  deserts  and  traversing  unfriendly 
countries;  the  old,  the  infirm,  women  as  well  as 


106  NEIGHBORHOODS    OF   JERUSALEM 

men,  their  faces  set  towards  Jerusalem.  No  com- 
mon curiosity  moves  this  mass,  from  Ethiopia, 
from  Egypt,  from  Russia,  from  European  Turkey, 
from  Asia  Minor,  from  the  banks  of  the  Tagus 
and  the  Araxesj  it  is  a  true  pilgrimage  of  faith, 
the  one  event  in  a  life  of  dull  monotony  and  sordid 
cares,  the  one  ecstasy  of  poetry  in  an  existence  of 
poverty  and  ignorance. 

We  spent  a  morning  in  the  Russian  Hospice, 
which  occupies  the  hill  to  the  northwest  of  the 
city.  It  is  a  fine  pile  of  buildings,  the  most  con- 
spicuous of  which,  on  account  of  its  dome,  is  the 
church,  a  large  edifice  with  a  showy  exterior,  but 
of  no  great  merit  or  interest.  We  were  shown 
some  holy  pictures  which  are  set  in  frames  in- 
crusted  with  diamonds,  emeralds,  rubies,  and  other 
precious  gems,  the  offerings  of  rich  devotees,  and 
displaying  their  wealth  rather  than  their  taste. 

The  establishment  has  one  building  for  the  ac- 
commodation of  rich  pilgrims,  and  a  larger  one 
set  apart  for  peasants.  The  hospice  lodges,  free 
of  charge,  all  the  Russian  pilgrims.  The  exterior 
court  was  full  of  them.  They  were  sunning  them- 
selves, but  not  inclined  to  lay  aside  their  hot  furs 
and  heavy  woollens.  We  passed  into  the  interior, 
entering  room  after  room  occupied  by  the  pilgrims, 
who  regarded  our  intrusion  with  good-natured 
indifference,  or  frankly  returned  our  curiosity. 
Some  of  the  rooms  were  large,  furnished  with 
broad  divans  about  the  sides,  which  served  for 
beds  and  lounging-places,  and  were  occupied  by 
both  sexes.  The  women,  rosy-cheeked,  light- 


RUSSIAN   PILGRIMS  107 

haired,  broad,  honest  -  looking  creatures,  were 
mending  their  clothes ;  the  men  were  snoozing  on 
the  divans,  flat  on  their  backs,  presenting  to  the 
spectator  the  bottoms  of  their  monstrous  shoes, 
which  had  soles  eight  inches  broad;  a  side  of 
leather  would  be  needed  for  a  pair.  In  these  not 
very  savory  rooms  they  cook,  eat,  and  sleep.  Here 
stood  their  stoves;  here  hung  their  pilgrim  knap- 
sacks; here  were  their  kits  of  shoemaker's  tools, 
for  mending  their  foot-gear,  which  they  had  tugged 
thousands  of  miles;  here  were  household  effects 
that  made  their  march  appear  more  like  an  emi- 
gration than  a  pilgrimage;  here  were  the  staring 
pictures  of  St.  George  and  the  Dragon,  and  of 
other  saints,  the  beads  and  the  other  relics,  which 
they  had  bought  in  Jerusalem. 

Although,  all  these  pilgrims  owed  allegiance  to 
the  Czar,  they  represented  a  considerable  variety 
of  races.  They  came  from  Archangel,  from  To- 
bolsk, from  the  banks  of  the  Ural,  from  Kurland ; 
they  had  found  their  way  along  the  Danube,  the 
Dnieper,  the  Don.  I  spoke  with  a  group  of  men 
and  women  who  had  walked  over  two  thousand 
miles  before  they  reached  Odessa  and  took  ship  for 
Jaffa.  There  were  among  them  Cossacks,  wild 
and  untidy,  light  -  haired  barbarians  from  the 
Caucasus,  dark-skinned  men  and  women  from  Mos- 
cow, representatives  from  the  remotest  provinces 
of  great  Russia;  for  the  most  part  simple,  rude, 
clumsy,  honest  boors.  In  an  interior  court  we 
found  men  and  women  seated  on  the  sunny  flag- 
ging, busily  occupied  in  arranging  and  packing  the 


108      NEIGHBORHOODS  OF  JERUSALEM 

souvenirs  of  their  visit.  There  was  rosemary 
spread  out  to  dry ;  there  were  little  round  cakes  of 
blessed  bre"ad  stamped  with  the  image  of  the  Sa- 
viour; there  were  branches  of  palm,  crowns  of 
thorns,  and  stalks  of  cane  cut  at  the  Jordan ;  there 
were  tin  cases  of  Jordan  water;  there  were  long 
strips  of  cotton  cloth  stamped  in  black  with  various 
insignia  of  death,  to  serve  at  home  for  coffin  cov- 
ers; there  were  skull-caps  in  red,  yellow,  and 
white,  also  stamped  with  holy  images,  to  be  put  on 
the  heads  of  the  dead.  I  could  not  but  in  mind 
follow  these  people  to  their  distant  homes,  and 
think  of  the  pride  with  which  they  would  show 
these  trophies  of  their  pilgrimage;  how  the  rude 
neighbors  would  handle  with  awe  a  stick  cut  on 
the  banks  of  the  Jordan,  or  eat  with  faith  a  bit  of 
the  holy  bread.  How  sacred,  in  those  homes  of 
frost  and  snow,  will  not  these  mementos  of  a  land 
of  sun,  of  a  land  so  sacred,  become !  I  can  see  the 
wooden  chest  in  the  cabin  where  the  rosemary  will 
be  treasured,  keeping  sweet,  against  the  day  of 
need,  the  caps  and  the  shrouds. 

These  people  will  need  to  make  a  good  many 
more  pilgrimages,  and  perhaps  to  quit  their  mo- 
rose land  altogether,  before  they  can  fairly  rank 
among  the  civilized  of  the  earth.  They  were 
thick-set,  padded-legged,  short-bodied,  unintelli- 
gent. The  faces  of  many  of  them  were  worn,  as 
if  storm-beaten,  and  some  kept  their  eyes  half 
closed,  as  if  they  were  long  used  to  face  the  sleet 
and  blasts  of  winter;  and  I  noticed  that  it  gave 
their  faces  a  very  different  expression  from  that 


THE    JERUSALEM    DONKEY 

produced  by  the  habit  the  Egyptians  have  of  draw- 
ing the  eyelids  close  together  on  account  of  the 
glare  of  the  sun. 

We  took  donkeys  one  lovely  morning,  and  rode 
from  the  Jaffa  Gate  around  the  walls  on  our  way 
to  the  Mount  of  Olives.  The  Jerusalem  donkey 
is  a  good  enough  donkey,  but  he  won't  go.  He  is 
ridden  with  a  halter,  and  never  so  elegantly  capar- 
isoned as  his  more  genteel  brother  in  Cairo.  In 
order  to  get  him  along  at  all,  it  needs  one  man  to 
pull  the  halter  and  another  to  follow  behind  with 
a  stick ;  the  donkey  then  moves  by  inches  —  if  he 
is  in  the  humor.  The  animal  that  I  rode  stopped 
at  once,  when  he  perceived  that  his  driver  was  ab- 
sent. No  persuasions  of  mine,  such  as  kicks  and 
whacks  of  a  heavy  stick,  could  move  him  on ;  he 
would  turn  out  of  the  road,  put  his  head  against 
the  wall,  and  pretend  to  go  to  sleep.  You  would 
not  suppose  it  possible  for  a  beast  to  exhibit  so 
much  contempt  for  a  man. 

On  the  high  ground  outside  the  wall  were 
pitched  the  tents  of  travelers,  making  a  very 
pretty  effect  amid  the  olive-trees  and  the  gray 
rocks.  Now  and  then  an  Arab  horseman  came 
charging  down  the  road,  or  a  Tiirkish  official  can- 
tered by;  women,  veiled,  clad  in  white  balloon 
robes  that  covered  them  from  head  to  foot,  flitted 
along  in  the  sunshine,  mere  white  appearances  of 
women,  to  whom  it  was  impossible  to  attribute  any 
such  errand  as  going  to  market;  they  seemed  al- 
ways to  be  going  to  or  returning  from  the  ceme- 
tery. 


110  NEIGHBOKHOODS    OF   JERUSALEM 

Our  way  lay  down  the  rough  path  and  the  wind- 
ing road  to  the  bottom  of  the  Valley  of  Jehosha- 
phat.  Leaving  the  Garden  of  Gethsemane  on  our 
right,  we  climbed  up  the  rugged,  stony,  steep  path 
to  the  summit  of  the  hill.  There  are  a  few  olive- 
trees  on  the  way,  enough  to  hinder  the  view  where 
the  stone-walls  would  permit  us  to  see  anything; 
importunate  begging  Moslems  beset  us;  all  along 
the  route  we  encountered  shabbiness  and  squalor. 
The  rural  sweetness  and  peace  that  we  associate 
with  this  dear  mount  appear  to  have  been  worn 
away  centuries  ago.  We  did  not  expect  too  much, 
but  we  were  not  prepared  for  such  a  shabby  show- 
place.  If  we  could  sweep  away  all  the  filthy  hab- 
itations and  hideous  buildings  on  the  hill,  and  leave 
it  to  nature,  or  indeed  convert  the  surface  into  a 
well  ordered  garden,  the  spot  would  be  one  of  the 
most  attractive  in  the  world. 

We  hoped  that  when  we  reached  the  summit  we 
should  come  into  an  open,  green  and  shady  place, 
free  from  the  disagreeable  presence  of  human 
greed  and  all  the  artificiality  that  interposed  itself 
between  us  and  the  sentiment  of  the  place.  But 
the  traveler  need  not  expect  that  in  Palestine. 
Everything  is  staked  out  and  made  a  show  of. 
Arrived  at  the  summit,  we  could  see  little  or  no- 
thing ;  it  is  crowned  with  the  dilapidated  Chapel  of 
the  Ascension.  We  entered  a  dirty  court,  where 
the  custodian  and  his  family  and  his  animals  live, 
and  from  thence  were  admitted  to  the  church.  In 
the  pavement  is  shown  the  footprint  of  our  ascend- 
ing Lord,  although  the  Ascension  was  made  at 


THE   SCENE   OF   THE   ASCENSION  111 

Bethany.  We  paid  the  custodian  for  permission 
to  see  this  manufactured  scene  of  the  Ascension. 
The  best  point  of  view  to  be  had  here  is  the  old 
tower  of  the  deserted  convent,  or  the  narrow  pas- 
sage to  it  on  the  wall,  or  the  top  of  the  minaret 
near  the  church.  There  is  no  place  on  wall  or 
tower  where  one  can  sit;  there  is  no  place  any- 
where here  to  sit  down,  and  in  peace  and  quiet 
enjoy  the  magnificent  prospect,  and  meditate  on 
the  most  momentous  event  in  human  history.  We 
snatched  the  view  in  the  midst  of  annoyances. 
The  most  minute  features  of  it  are  known  to  every 
one  who  reads.  The  portion  of  it  I  did  not  seem 
to  have  been  long  familiar  with  is  that  to  the  east, 
comprising  the  Jordan  valley,  the  mountains  of 
Moab,  and  the  Dead  Sea. 

Although  this  mount  is  consecrated  by  the  fre- 
quent presence  of  Christ,  who  so  often  crossed  it 
in  going  to  and  from  Bethany,  and  retired  here  to 
meditate  and  to  commune  with  his  loved  followers, 
everything  that  the  traveler  at  present  encounters 
on  its  summit  is  out  of  sympathy  with  his  mem- 
ory. We  escaped  from  the  beggars  and  the  show- 
men, climbed  some  stone-walls,  and  in  a  rough 
field  near  the  brow  of  the  hill,  in  a  position  neither 
comfortable  nor  private,  but  the  best  that  we  found, 
read  the  chief  events  in  the  life  of  Christ  con- 
nected with  this  mount,  the  triumphal  entry,  and 
the  last  scenes  transacted  on  yonder  hill.  And  we 
endeavored  to  make  the  divine  man  live  again,  who 
so  often  and  so  sorrrowfully  regarded  the  then 
shining  city  of  Zion  from  this  height. 


112     NEIGHBORHOODS  OF  JERUSALEM 

To  the  south  of  the  church  and  a  little  down  the 
hill  is  the  so-called  site  of  the  giving  of  the  Lord's 
Prayer.  I  do  not  know  on  what  authority  it  is 
thus  named.  A  chapel  is  built  to  mark  the  spot, 
and  a  considerable  space  is  inclosed  before  it,  in 
which  are  other  objects  of  interest,  and  these  were 
shown  to  us  by  a  pleasant-spoken  lady,  who  is  con- 
nected with  the  convent,  and  has  faith  equal  to  the 
demands  of  her  position.  We  first  entered  a  sub- 
terranean vaulted  room,  with  twelve  rough  half- 
pillars  on  each  side,  called  the  room  where  the 
Apostles  composed  the  creed.  We  then  passed 
into  the  chapel.  Upon  the  four  walls  of  its  arcade 
is  written,  in  great  characters,  the  Lord's  Prayer 
in  thirty-two  languages ;  among  them  the  "  Cana- 
dian." 

In  a  little  side  chapel  is  the  tomb  of  Aurelia  de 
Bossa,  Princesse  de  la  Tour  d'Auvergne,  Duchesse 
de  Bouillon,  the  lady  whose  munificence  estab- 
lished this  chapel  and  executed  the  prayer  in  so 
many  tongues.  Upon  the  side  of  the  tomb  this 
fact  of  her  benevolence  is  announced,  and  the  ex- 
pectation is  also  expressed,  in  French,  that  "God 
will  overwhelm  her  with  blessing  for  ever  and  ever 
for  her  good  deed."  Stretched  upon  the  sarco- 
phagus is  a  beautiful  marble  efngy  of  the  princess ; 
the  figure  is  lovely,  the  face  is  sweet  and  seraphic, 
and  it  is  a  perfect  likeness  of  her  ladyship. 

I  do  not  speak  at  random.  I  happen  to  know 
that  it  is  a  perfect  likeness,  for  a  few  minutes  after 
I  saw  it,  I  met  her  in  the  corridor,  in  a  semi-nun- 
like  costume,  with  a  heavy  cross  hanging  by  a  long 


THE   MOST    FORTUNATE   OF    WOMEN         113 

gold  chain  at  her  side.  About  her  forehead  was 
bound  a  barbarous  frontlet  composed  of  some  two 
hundred  gold  coins  and  ornaments,  not  unlike  those 
worn  by  the  ladies  of  the  ancient  Egyptians.  This 
incongruity  of  costume  made  me  hesitate  whether 
to  recognize  in  this  dazzling  vision  of  womanhood 
a  priestess  of  Astarte  or  of  Christ.  At  the  far- 
ther door,  Aurelia  de  Bossa,  Princesse  de  la  Tour 
d'Auvergne,  Duchesse  de  Bouillon,  stopped  and 
blew  shrilly  a  silver  whistle  which  hung  at  her 
girdle,  to  call  her  straying  poodle,  or  to  summon 
a  servant.  In  the  rear  of  the  chapel  this  lady  lives 
in  a  very  pretty  house,  and  near  it  she  was  build- 
ing a  convent  for  Carmelite  nuns.  I  cannot  but 
regard  her  as  the  most  fortunate  of  her  sex.  She 
enjoys  not  only  this  life,  but,  at  the  same  time,  all 
the  posthumous  reputation  that  a  lovely  tomb  and 
a  record  of  her  munificence  engraved  thereon  can 
give.  We  sometimes  hear  of,  but  we  seldom  see, 
a  person,  in  these  degenerate  days,  living  in  this 
world  as  if  already  in  the  other. 

We  went  on  over  the  hill  to  Bethany ;  we  had 
climbed  up  by  the  path  on  which  David  fled  from 
Absalom,  and  we  were  to  return  by  the  road  of  the 
Triumphal  Entry.  All  along  the  ridge  we  en- 
joyed a  magnificent  panorama :  a  blue  piece  of  the 
Dead  Sea,  the  Jordan  plain  extending  far  up  to- 
wards Ilermon  with  the  green  ribbon  of  the  river 
winding  through  it,  and  the  long,  even  range  of 
the  Moab  hills,  blue  in  the  distance.  The  prospect 
was  almost  Swiss  in  its  character,  but  it  is  a  mass 
of  bare  hills,  with  scarcely  a  tree  except  in  the  im- 


114      NEIGHBORHOODS  OF  JERUSALEM 

mediate  foreground,  and  so  naked  and  desolate  as 
to  make  the  heart  ache ;  it  would  be  entirely  deso- 
late but  for  the  deep  blue  of  the  sky  and  an  at- 
mosphere that  bathes  all  the  great  sweep  of  peaks 
and  plains  in  color. 

Bethany  is  a  squalid  hamlet  clinging  to  the 
rocky  hillside,  with  only  one  redeeming  feature 
about  it,  —  the  prospect.  A  few  wretched  one- 
story  huts  of  stone,  and  a  miserable  handful  of 
Moslems,  occupy  this  favorite  home  and  resting- 
place  of  our  Lord.  Close  at  hand,  by  the  road- 
side, cut  in  the  rock  and  reached  by  a  steep  descent 
of  twenty-six  steps,  is  the  damp  and  doubtful 
tomb  of  Lazarus,  down  into  which  any  one  may 
go  for  half  a  franc  paid  to  the  Moslem  guardian. 
The  house  of  Mary  and  Martha  is  exhibited  among 
the  big  rocks  and  fragments  of  walls ;  upon  older 
foundations  loose  walls  are  laid,  rudely  and  re- 
cently patched  up  with  cut  stones  in  fragments, 
and  pieces  of  Roman  columns.  The  house  of 
Simon  the  leper,  overlooking  the  whole,  is  a  mere 
heap  of  ruins.  It  does  not  matter,  however,  that 
all  these  dwellings  are  modern;  this  is  Bethany, 
and  when  we  get  away  from  its  present  wretched- 
ness we  remember  only  that  we  have  seen  the  very 
place  that  Christ  loved. 

We  returned  along  the  highway  of  the  Entry 
slowly,  pausing  to  identify  the  points  of  that  mem- 
orable progress,  up  to  the  crest  where  Jerusalem 
broke  upon  the  sight  of  the  Lord,  and  whence  the 
procession,  coming  round  the  curve  of  the  hill, 
would  have  the  full  view  of  the  city.  He  who  rides 


THE  GARDEN  OF  GETHSEMANE      115 

that  way  to-day  has  a  grand  prospect.  One  finds 
Jerusalem  most  poetic  when  seen  from  Olivet,  and 
Olivet  most  lovely  when  seen  from  the  distance  of 
the  city  walls. 

At  the  foot  of  the  descent  we  turned  and  entered 
the  inclosure  of  the  Garden  of  Gethsemane.  Three 
stone-wall  inclosures  here  claim  to  be  the  real  gar- 
den ;  one  is  owned  by  the  Greeks,  another  by  the 
Armenians,  the  third  by  the  Latins.  We  chose 
the  last,  as  it  is  the  largest  and  pleasantest ;  per- 
haps the  garden,  which  was  certainly  in  this  vicin- 
ity, once  included  them  all.  After  some  delay  we 
were  admitted  by  a  small  door  in  the  wall,  and 
taken  charge  of  by  a  Latin  monk,  whose  young 
and  sweet  face  was  not  out  of  sympathy  with  the 
place.  The  garden  contains  a  few  aged  olive-trees, 
and  some  small  plots  of  earth,  fenced  about  and 
secured  by  locked  gates,  in  which  flowers  grow. 
The  guardian  gave  us  some  falling  roses,  and  did 
what  he  could  to  relieve  the  scene  of  its  artificial 
appearance ;  around  the  wall,  inside,  are  the  twelve 
stations  of  the  Passion,  in  the  usual  tawdry  style. 

But  the  birds  sang  sweetly  in  the  garden,  the 
flowers  of  spring  were  blooming,  and,  hemmed  in 
by  the  high  wall,  we  had  some  moments  of  solemn 
peace,  broken  only  by  the  sound  of  a  Moslem  da- 
rabooka  drum  throbbing  near  at  hand.  Desecrated 
as  this  spot  is,  and  made  cheap  by  the  petty  crea- 
tions of  superstition,  one  cannot  but  feel  the  awful 
significance  of  the  place,  and  the  weight  of  history 
crowding  upon  him,  where  battles  raged  for  a 
thousand  years,  and  where  the  greatest  victory  of 


116     NEIGHBORHOODS  OF  JERUSALEM 

all  was  won  when  Christ  commanded  Peter  to  put 
up  his  sword.  Near  here  Titus  formed  his  columns 
which  stormed  the  walls  and  captured  the  heroic 
city,  after  its  houses,  and  all  this  valley  itself,  were 
filled  with  Jewish  dead ;  but  all  this  is  as  nothing 
to  the  event  of  that  awful  night  when  the  servants 
of  the  high-priest  led  away  the  unresisting  Lord. 

It  is  this  event,  and  not  any  other,  that  puts  an 
immeasurable  gulf  between  this  and  all  other  cities, 
and  perhaps  this  difference  is  more  felt  the  farther 
one  is  from  Jerusalem.  The  visitor  expects  too 
much ;  he  is  unreasonably  impatient  of  the  contrast 
between  the  mean  appearance  of  the  theatre  and 
the  great  events  that  have  been  enacted  on  it; 
perhaps  he  is  not  prepared  for  the  ignorance,  the 
cupidity,  the  credulity,  the  audacious  impostures 
under  Christian  names,  on  the  spot  where  Chris- 
tianity was  born. 

When  one  has  exhausted  the  stock  sights  of 
Jerusalem,  it  is  probably  the  dullest,  least  enter- 
taining city  of  the  Orient;  I  mean,  in  itself,  for 
its  pilgrims  and  its  religious  fetes,  in  the  spring 
of  the  year,  offer  always  some  novelties  to  the 
sight-seer;  and,  besides,  there  is  a  certain  melan- 
choly pleasure  to  be  derived  from  roaming  about 
outside  the  walls,  enveloped  in  a  historic  illusion 
that  colors  and  clothes  the  nakedness  of  the  land- 
scape. 

The  chief  business  of  the  city  and  the  region 
seems  to  be  the  manufacture  of  religious  playthings 
for  the  large  children  who  come  here.  If  there  is 
any  factory  of  relics  here,  I  did  not  see  it.  Nor 


OLIVE   TREE    IN   THE    GARDEN   OF    GETHSE.MANE 


COUNTERFEIT   ANTIQUITIES  117 

do  I  know  whether  the  true  cross  has  still  the  power 
'of  growing,  which  it  had  in  the  fourth  century,  to 
renew  itself  under  the  constant  demand  for  pieces 
of  it.  I  dLl  not  go  to  see  the  place  where  the  tree 
grew  of  which  it  was  made ;  the  exact  spot  is 
shown  in  a  Greek  convent  about  a  mile  and  a  half 
west  of  the  city.  The  tree  is  said  to  have  been 
planted  by  Abraham  and  Noah.  This  is  evidently 
an  error;  it  may  have  been  planted  by  Adam  and 
watered  by  Noah. 

There  is  not  much  trade  in  antiquities  in  the 
city;  the  shops  offer  little  to  tempt  the  curiosity- 
hunter.  Copper  coins  of  the  Roman  period  abound, 
and  are  constantly  turned  up  in  the  fields  outside 
the  city,  most  of  them  battered  and  defaced  beyond 
recognition.  Jewish  mites  are  plenty  enough,  but 
the  silver  shekel  would  be  rare  if  the  ingenious  Jews 
did  not  keep  counterfeits  on  hand.  The  tourist  is 
waited  on  at  his  hotel  by  a  few  patient  and  sleek 
sharks  with  cases  of  cheap  jewelry  and  doubtful 
antiques,  and  if  he  seeks  the  shops  of  the  gold  and 
silver  bazaars  he  will  find  little  more.  I  will  not 
say  that  he  will  not  now  and  then  pick  up  a  piece 
of  old  pottery  that  has  made  the  journey  from  Cen- 
tral Asia,  or  chance  upon  a  singular  stone  with  a 
talismanic  inscription.  The  hope  that  he  may  do 
so  carries  the  traveler  through  a  great  many  East- 
ern slums.  The  chief  shops,  however,  are  those 
of  trinkets  manufactured  for  the  pilgrims,  of  olive- 
wood,  ivory,  bone,  camels'  teeth,  and  all  manner 
of  nuts  and  seeds.  There  are  more  than  fifty  sorts 
of  beads,  strung  for  profane  use  or  arranged  for 


118  NEIGHBORHOODS    OF   JERUSALEM 

rosaries,  and  some  of  them  have  pathetic  names, 
like  "Job's  tears."  Jerusalem  is  entitled  to  be 
called  the  City  of  Beads. 

There  is  considerable  activity  in  Jewish  objects 
that  are  old  and  rather  unclean ;  and  I  think  I  dis- 
covered something  like  an  attempt  to  make  a  "cor- 
ner "  in  phylacteries,  that  is,  in  old  ones,  for  the 
new  are  made  in  excess  of  the  demand.  If  a  per- 
son desires  to  carry  home  a  phylactery  to  exhibit 
to  his  Sunday-school,  in  illustration  of  the  religion 
of  the  Jews,  he  wants  one  that  has  been  a  long  time 
in  use.  I  do  not  suppose  it  possible  that  the  edu- 
cation of  any  other  person  is  as  deficient  as  mine 
was  in  the  matter  of  these  ornamental  aids  in  wor- 
ship. But  if  there  is  one,  this  description  is  for 
him:  the  phylactery,  common  size,  is  a  leathern 
box  about  an  inch  and  a  half  square,  with  two  nar- 
rcw  straps  of  leather,  about  three  feet  long,  sewed 
to  the  bottom  corners.  The  box  contains  a  parch- 
ment roll  of  sacred  writing.  When  the  worshiper 
performs  his  devotions  in  the  synagogue,  he  binds 
one  of  the  phylacteries  about  his  left  arm  and  the 
other  about  his  head,  so  that  the  little  box  has 
something  of  the  appearance  of  a  leathern  horn 
sprouting  out  of  his  forehead.  Phylacteries  are 
worn  only  in  the  synagogue,  and  in  this  respect 
differ  from  the  greasy  leathern  talismans  of  the 
Nubians,  which  contain  scraps  from  the  Koran, 
and  are  never  taken  off.  Whatever  significance 
the  phylactery  once  had  to  the  Jew  it  seems  now 
to  have  lost,  since  he  is  willing  to  make  it  an  ar- 
ticle of  merchandise.  Perhaps  it  is  poverty  that 


THE   SHCEPIRA   COLLECTION  119 

compels  him  also  to  sell  his  ancient  scriptures; 
parchment  rolls  of  favorite  books,  such  as  Esther, 
that  are  some  centuries  old,  are  occasionally  to  be 
bought,  and  new  rolls,  deceitfully  doctored  into  an 
appearance  of  antiquity,  are  offered  freely. 

A  few  years  ago  the  antiquarian  world  was  put 
into  a  ferment  by  what  was  called  the  "  Shoepira 
collection,"  a  large  quantity  of  clay  pottery,  — 
gods,  votive  offerings,  images,  jars,  and  other  ves- 
sels, —  with  inscriptions  in  unknown  characters, 
which  was  said  to  have  been  dug  up  in  the  land  of 
Moab,  beyond  the  Jordan,  and  was  expected  to 
throw  great  light  upon  certain  passages  of  Jewish 
history,  and  especially  upon  the  religion  of  the 
heathen  who  occupied  Palestine  at  the  time  of 
the  conquest.  The  collection  was  sent  to  Berlin ; 
some  eminent  German  savans  pronounced  it  genu- 
ine ;  nearly  all  the  English  scholars  branded  it  as 
an  impudent  imposture.  Two  collections  of  the 
articles  have  been  sent  to  Berlin,  where  they  are 
stored  out  of  sight  of  the  public  generally,  and 
Mr.  Shospira  has  made  a  third  collection,  which  he 
still  retains. 

Mr.  Shospira  is  a  Hebrew  antiquarian  and  book- 
seller, of  somewhat  eccentric  manners,  but  an  en- 
thusiast. He  makes  the  impression  of  a  man  who 
believes  in  his  discoveries,  and  it  is  generally 
thought  in  Jerusalem  that  if  his  collection  is  a 
forgery,  he  himself  is  imposed  on.  The  account 
which  he  gives  of  the  places  where  the  images  and 
utensils  were  found  is  anything  but  clear  or  defi- 
nite. We  are  required  to  believe  that  they  have 


120  NEIGHBORHOODS    OF   JERUSALEM 

been  dug  up  in  caves  at  night  and  by  stealth,  and 
at  the  peril  of  the  lives  of  the  discoverers,  and  that 
it  is  not  safe  to  visit  these  caves  in  the  daytime  on 
account  of  the  Bedaween.  The  fresh -baked  ap- 
pearance of  some  of  the  articles  is  admitted,  and  it 
is  said  that  it  was  necessary  to  roast  them  to  pre- 
vent their  crumbling  when  exposed  to  the  air.  Our 
theory  in  regard  to  these  singular  objects  is  that  a 
few  of  those  first  shown  were  actually  discovered, 
and  that  all  the  remainder  have  been  made  in  imi- 
tation of  them.  Of  the  characters  (or  alphabet) 
of  the  inscriptions,  Mr.  Shoepira  says  he  has  deter- 
mined twenty -three ;  sixteen  of  these  are  Phoeni- 
cian, and  the  others,  his  critics  say,  are  meaning- 
less. All  the  objects  are  exceedingly  rude  and 
devoid  of  the  slightest  art ;  the  images  are  many  of 
them  indecent;  the  jars  are  clumsy  in  shape,  but 
the  inscriptions  are  put  on  with  some  skill.  The 
figures  are  supposed  to  have  been  votive  offerings, 
and  the  jars  either  memorial  or  sepulchral  urns. 

The  hideous  collection  appeared  to  me  sui  ge- 
neris, although  some  of  the  images  resemble  the 
rudest  of  those  called  Phrenician  which  General  di 
Cesnola  unearthed  in  Cyprus.  Without  merit,  they 
seem  to  belong  to  a  rude  age  rather  than  to  be  the 
inartistic  product  of  this  age.  That  is,  supposing 
them  to  be  forgeries,  I  cannot  see  how  these  figures 
could  be  conceived  by  a  modern  man,  who  was  ca- 
pable of  inventing  a  fraud  of  this  sort.  He  would 
have  devised  something  better,  at  least  something 
less  simple,  something  that  would  have  somewhere 
betrayed  a  little  modern  knowledge  and  feeling. 


THE    HEBREW   NATION  121 

All  the  objects  have  the  same  barbarous  tone,  a 
kind  of  character  that  is  distinct  from  their  rude- 
ness, and  the  same  images  and  designs  are  repeated 
over  and  over  again.  This  gives  color  to  the  the- 
ory that  a  few  genuine  pieces  of  Moabite  pottery 
were  found,  which  gave  the  idea  for  a  large  man- 
ufacture of  them.  And  yet,  there  are  people  who 
see  these  things,  and  visit  all  the  holy  places,  and 
then  go  away  and  lament  that  there  are  no  manu- 
factories in  Jerusalem. 

Jerusalem  attracts  while  it  repels;  and  both  it 
and  all  Palestine  exercise  a  spell  out  of  all  propor- 
tion to  the  consideration  they  had  in  the  ancient 
world.  The  student  of  the  mere  facts  of  history, 
especially  if  his  studies  were  made  in  Jerusalem 
itself,  would  be  at  a  loss  to  account  for  the  place 
that  the  Holy  City  occupies  in  the  thought  of  the 
modern  world,  and  the  importance  attached  to  the 
history  of  the  handful  of  people  who  made  them- 
selves a  home  in  this  rocky  country.  The  Hebrew 
nation  itself,  during  the  little  time  it  was  a  nation, 
did  not  play  a  part  in  Oriental  affairs  at  all  com- 
mensurate with  its  posthumous  reputation.  It  was 
not  one  of  the  great  kingdoms  of  antiquity,  and  in 
that  theatre  of  war  and  conquest  which  spread  from 
Ethiopia  to  the  Caspian  Sea,  it  was  scarcely  an 
appreciable  force  in  the  great  drama. 

The  country  the  Hebrews  occupied  was  small ; 
they  never  conquered  or  occupied  the  whole  of  the 
Promised  Land,  which  extended  from  the  Medi- 
terranean Sea  to  the  Arabian  plain,  from  Hamath 
to  Sinai.  Their  territory  in  actual  possession 


122  NEIGHBORHOODS    OF    JERUSALEM 

reached  only  from  Dan  to  Beersheba.  The  coast 
they  never  subdued;  the  Philistines,  who  came 
from  Crete  and  grew  to  be  a  great  people  in  the 
plain,  held  the  lower  portion  of  Palestine  on  the 
sea,  and  the  Pho3nicians  the  upper.  Except  dur- 
ing a  brief  period  in  their  history,  the  Jews  were 
confined  to  the  hill-country.  Only  during  the 
latter  part  of  the  reign  of  David  and  two  thirds  of 
that  of  Solomon  did  the  Jewish  kingdom  take  on 
the  proportions  of  a  great  state.  David  extended 
the  Israelitish  power  from  the  Gulf  of  Akaba 
to  the  Euphrates ;  Damascus  paid  him  tribute ;  he 
occupied  the  cities  of  his  old  enemies,  the  Philis- 
tines, but  the  kingdom  of  Tyre,  still  in  possession 
of  Hiram,  marked  the  limit  of  Jewish  sway  in  that 
direction.  This  period  of  territorial  consequence 
was  indeed  brief.  Before  Solomon  was  in  his 
grave,  the  conquests  bequeathed  to  him  by  his 
father  began  to  slip  from  his  hand.  The  life  of 
the  Israelites  as  a  united  nation,  as  anything  but 
discordant  and  warring  tribes,  after  the  death  of 
Joshua,  is  all  included  in  the  reigns  of  David  and 
Solomon,  —  perhaps  sixty  or  seventy  years. 

The  Israelites  were  essentially  highlanders. 
Some  one  has  noticed  their  resemblance  to  the 
Scotch  Highlanders  in  modes  of  warfare.  In 
fighting  they  aimed  to  occupy  the  heights.  They 
descended  into  the  plain  reluctantly;  they  made 
occasional  forays  into  the  lowlands,  but  their  hills 
were  their  strength,  as  the  Psalmist  said;  and 
they  found  security  among  their  crags  and  se- 
cluded glens  from  the  agitations  which  shook  the 


THE    KINGDOM   OF   ISRAEL  123 

great  empires  of  the  Eastern  world.  Invasions, 
retreats,  pursuits,  the  advance  of  devouring  hosts 
or  the  flight  of  panic-stricken  masses,  for  a  long 
time  passed  by  their  ridge  of  country  on  either 
side,  along  the  Mediterranean  or  through  the  land 
of  Moab.  They  were  out  of  the  track  of  Oriental 
commerce  as  well  as  of  war.  So  removed  were 
they  from  participation  in  the  stirring  affairs  of 
their  era  that  they  seem  even  to  have  escaped  the 
omnivorous  Egyptian  conquerors.  For  a  long 
period  conquest  passed  them  by,  and  it  was  not 
till  their  accumulation  of  wealth  tempted  the  ava- 
rice of  the  great  Asiatic  powers  that  they  were  in- 
volved in  the  conflicts  which  finally  destroyed  them. 
The  small  kingdom  of  Judah,  long  after  that  of 
Israel  had  been  utterly  swept  away,  owed  its  con- 
tinuance of  life  to  its  very  defensible  position. 
Solomon  left  Jerusalem  a  strong  city,  well  sup- 
plied with  water,  and  capable  of  sustaining  a  long 
siege,  while  the  rugged  country  around  it  offered 
little  comfort  to  a  besieging  army. 

For  a  short  time  David  made  the  name  of  Israel 
a  power  in  the  world,  and  Solomon,  inheriting  his 
reputation,  added  the  triumphs  of  commerce  to 
those  of  conquest.  By  a  judicious  heathen  alliance 
with  Hiram  of  Tyre  he  was  able  to  build  vessels 
on  the  Red  Sea  and  man  them  with  Phoenician  sail- 
ors, for  voyages  to  India  and  Ceylon ;  and  he  was 
admitted  by  Hiram  to  a  partnership  in  his  trading 
adventures  to  the  Pillars  of  Hercules.  But  these 
are  only  episodes  in  the  Jewish  career;  the  nation's 
part  in  Oriental  history  is  comparatively  insignifi- 


124  NEIGHBORHOODS   OF   JERUSALEM 

cant  until  the  days  of  their  great  calamities.  How 
much  attention  its  heroism  and  suffering  attracted 
at  that  time  we  do  not  know. 

Though  the  Israelites  during  their  occupation 
of  the  hill-country  of  Palestine  were  not  concerned 
in  the  great  dynastic  struggles  of  the  Orient,  they 
were  not,  however,  at  peace.  Either  the  tribes 
were  fighting  among  themselves,  or  they  were  in- 
volved in  sanguinary  fights  with  the  petty  heathen 
chiefs  about  them.  We  get  a  lively  picture  of  the 
habits  of  the  time  in  a  sentence  in  the  second  book 
of  Samuel:  "And  it  came  to  pass,  after  the  year 
was  expired,  at  the  time  when  kings  go  forth  to 
battle,  that  David  sent  Joab  and  his  servants  with 
him,  and  all  Israel;  and  they  destroyed  the  chil- 
dren of  Ammon,  and  besieged  Rabbah."  It  was 
a  pretty  custom.  In  that  season  when  birds  pair 
and  build  their  nests,  when  the  sap  mounts  in  the 
trees  and  travelers  long  to  go  into  far  countries, 
kings  felt  a  noble  impulse  in  their  veins  to  go  out 
and  fight  other  kings.  But  this  primitive  simpli- 
city was  mingled  with  shocking  barbarity;  David 
once  put  his  captives  under  the  saw,  and  there  is 
nothing  to  show  that  the  Israelites  were  more 
moved  by  sentiments  of  pity  and  compassion  than 
their  heathen  neighbors.  There  was  occasionally, 
however,  a  grim  humor  in  their  cruelty.  When 
Judah  captured  King  Adoni-bezek,  in  Bezek,  he 
cut  off  his  great  toes  and  his  thumbs.  Adoni- 
bezek,  who  could  appreciate  a  good  thing,  accepted 
the  mutilation  in  the  spirit  in  which  it  was  offered, 
and  said  that  he  had  himself  served  seventy  kings 


IDOLATRY    OF   THE   JEWS  125 

in  that  fashion ;  "  threescore  and  ten  kings,  having 
their  thumbs  and  great  toes  cut  off,  gathered  their 
meat  under  my  table." 

From  the  death  of  Joshua  to  the  fall  of  Samaria, 
the  history  of  the  Jews  is  largely  a  history  of  civil 
war.  From  about  seven  hundred  years  before 
Christ,  Palestine  was  essentially  a  satrapy  of  the 
Assyrian  kings,  as  it  was  later  to  become  one  of 
the  small  provinces  of  the  Roman  empire.  At  the 
time  when  Sennacherib  was  waiting  before  Jerusa- 
lem for  Hezekiah  to  purchase  his  withdrawal  by 
stripping  the  gold  from  the  doors  of  the  Temple, 
the  foundations  of  a  city  were  laid  on  the  banks  of 
the  Tiber,  which  was  to  extend  its  sway  over  the 
known  world,  to  whose  dominion  the  utmost  power 
of  Jerusalem  was  only  a  petty  sovereignty,  and 
which  was  destined  to  rival  Jerusalem  itself  as  the 
spiritual  capital  of  the  earth. 

If  we  do  not  find  in  the  military  power  or  terri- 
torial consequence  of  the  Jews  an  explanation  of 
their  influence  in  the  modern  world,  still  less  do 
we  find  it  in  any  faithfulness  to  a  spiritual  religion, 
the  knowledge  of  which  was  their  chief  distinction 
among  the  tribes  about  them.  Their  lapses  from 
the  worship  of  Jehovah  were  so  frequent,  and  of 
such  long  duration,  that  their  returns  to  the  wor- 
ship of  the  true  God  seem  little  more  than  breaks 
in  their  practice  of  idolatry.  And  these  spasmodic 
returns  were  due  to  calamities,  and  fears  of  worse 
judgments.  Solomon  sanctioned  by  national  au- 
thority gross  idolatries  which  had  been  long  prac- 
ticed. At  his  death,  ten  of  the  tribes  seceded 


126  NEIGHBORHOODS    OF   JERUSALEM 

from  the  dominion  of  Judah  and  set  up  a  kingdom 
in  which  idolatry  was  made  and  remained  the  state 
religion,  until  the  ten  tribes  vanished  from  the 
theatre  of  history.  The  kingdom  of  Israel,  in  or- 
der to  emphasize  its  separation  from  that  of  Judah, 
set  up  the  worship  of  Jehovah  in  the  image  of  a 
golden  calf.  Against  this  state  religion  of  image- 
worship  the  prophets  seem  to  have  thought  it  in 
vain  to  protest;  they  contented  themselves  with 
battling  against  the  more  gross  and  licentious  idol- 
atries of  Baal  and  Ashtaroth;  and  Israel  always 
continued  the  idol-worship  established  by  Jero- 
boam. The  worship  of  Jehovah  was  the  state  re- 
ligion of  the  little  kingdom  of  Judah,  but  during 
the  period  of  its  existence,  before  the  Captivity,  I 
think  that  only  four  of  its  kings  were  not  idolaters. 
The  people  were  constantly  falling  away  into  the 
heathenish  practices  of  their  neighbors. 

If  neither  territorial  consequence  nor  religious 
steadfastness  gave  the  Jews  rank  among  the  great 
nations  of  antiquity,  they  would  equally  fail  of  the 
consideration  they  now  enjoy  but  for  one  thing, 
and  that  is,  after  all,  the  chief  and  enduring  pro- 
duct of  any  nationality ;  we  mean,  of  course,  its  lit- 
erature. It  is  by  that,  that  the  little  kingdoms  of 
Judah  and  Israel  hold  their  sway  over  the  world. 
It  is  that  which  invests  ancient  Jerusalem  with  its 
charm  and  dignity.  Not  what  the  Jews  did,  but 
the  songs  of  their  poets,  the  warnings  and  lamen- 
tations of  their  prophets,  the  touching  tales  of  their 
story-tellers,  draw  us  to  Jerusalem  by  the  most 
powerful  influences  that  affect  the  human  mind. 


HEBREW    LITERATURE  127 

And  most  of  this  unequaled  literature  is  the  pro- 
duct of  seasons  of  turbulence,  passion,  and  insecu- 
rity. Except  the  Proverbs  and  Song  of  Solomon, 
and  such  pieces  as  the  poem  of  Job  and  the  story 
of  Ruth,  which  seem  to  be  the  outcome  of  literary 
leisure,  the  Hebrew  writings  were  all  the  offspring 
of  exciting  periods.  David  composed  his  Psalms 
—  the  most  marvelous  interpreters  of  every  human 
aspiration,  exaltation,  want,  and  passion — with 
his  sword  in  his  hand;  and  the  prophets  always 
appear  to  ride  upon  a  whirlwind.  The  power  of 
Jerusalem  over  the  world  is  as  truly  a  literary 
one  as  that  of  Athens  is  one  of  art.  That  litera- 
ture was  unknown  to  the  ancients,  or  unappreci- 
ated: otherwise  contemporary  history  would  have 
considered  its  creators  of  more  consequence  than 
it  did. 

We  speak,  we  have  been  speaking,  of  the  Jeru- 
salem before  our  era,  and  of  the  interest  it  has  in- 
dependent of  the  great  event  which  is,  after  all,  its 
chief  claim  to  immortal  estimation.  It  becomes 
sacred  ground  to  us  because  there,  in  Bethlehem, 
Christ  was  born;  because  here  —  not  in  these 
streets,  but  upon  this  soil  —  he  walked  and  talked 
and  taught  and  ministered ;  because  upon  Olivet, 
yonder,  he  often  sat  with  his  disciples,  and  here, 
somewhere,  —  it  matters  not  where,  —  he  suffered 
death  and  conquered  death. 

This  is  the  scene  of  these  transcendent  events. 
We  say  it  to  ourselves  while  we  stand  here.  We 
can  clearly  conceive  it  when  we  are  at  a  distance. 
But  with  the  actual  Jerusalem  of  to-day  before  our 


128      NEIGHBORHOODS  OF  JERUSALEM 

eyes,  its  naked  desolation,  its  superstition,  its 
squalor,  its  vivid  contrast  to  what  we  conceive 
should  be  the  City  of  our  King,  we  find  it  easier 
to  feel  that  Christ  was  born  in  New  England  than 
in  Judaea. 


GOING  DOWN  TO  JERICHO 


T  is  on  a  lovely  spring  morning  that  we 
set  out  through  the  land  of  Benjamin 
to  go  down  among  the  thieves  of  Jeri- 
cho, and  to  the  Jordan  and  the  Dead 
Sea.  For  protection  against  the  thieves  we  take 
some  of  them  with  us,  since  you  cannot  in  these 
days  rely  upon  finding  any  good  Samaritans  there. 
For  some  'days  Abd-el-Atti  has  been  in  myste- 
rious diplomatic  relations  with  the  robbers  of  the 
wilderness,  who  live  in  Jerusalem,  and  farm  out 
their  territory.  "Thim  is  great  rascals,"  says  the 
dragoman ;  and  it  is  solely  on  that  account  that  we 
seek  their  friendship:  the  real  Bedawee  is  never 
known  to  go  back  on  his  word  to  the  traveler  who 
trusts  him,  so  long  as  it  is  more  profitable  to  keep 
it  than  to  break  it.  We  are  under  the  escort  of 
the  second  sheykh,  who  shares  with  the  first  sheykh 
the  rule  of  all  the  Bedaween  who  patrol  the  exten- 
sive territory  from  Hebron  to  the  fords  of  the  Jor- 
dan, including  Jerusalem,  Bethlehem,  Mar  Saba, 
and  the  shores  of  the  Dead  Sea;  these  rulers  would 
have  been  called  kings  in  the  old  time,  and  the 
second  sheykh  bears  the  same  relation  to  the  first 


130  GOING    DOWN   TO    JERICHO 

that  the  Caesar  did  to  the  Augustus  in  the  Roman 
Empire. 

Our  train  is  assembled  in  the  little  market-place 
opposite  the  hotel,  or  rather  it  is  assembling,  for 
horses  and  donkeys  are  slow  to  arrive,  saddles  are 
wanting,  the  bridles  are  broken,  and  the  unpunc- 
tuality  and  shiftlessness  of  the  East  manifest  them- 
selves. Abd-el-Atti  is  in  fierce  altercation  with 
a  Koorland  nobleman  about  a  horse,  which  you 
would  not  say  would  be  likely  to  be  a  bone  of  con- 
tention with  anybody.  They  are  both  endeavoring 
to  mount  at  once.  Friends  are  backing  each  com- 
batant, and  the  air  is  thick  with  curses  in  guttural 
German  and  maledictions  in  shrill  Arabic.  Un- 
fortunately I  am  appealed  to. 

"What  for  this  Dutchman,  he  take  my  horse?  " 

"Perhaps  he  hired  it  first?" 

"P'aps  not.  I  make  bargain  for  him  with  the 
owner  day  before  yesterday." 

"I  have  become  dis  pferd  for  four  days,"  cries 
the  Baron. 

There  seems  to  be  no  reason  to  doubt  the  Bar- 
on's word;  he  has  ridden  the  horse  to  Bethlehem, 
and  become  accustomed  to  his  jolts,  and  no  doubt 
has  the  prior  lien  on  the  animal.  The  owner  has 
let  him  to  both  parties,  a  thing  that  often  happens 
when  the  second  comer  offers  a  piastre  more. 
Another  horse  is  sent  for,  and  we  mount  and  begin 
to  disentangle  ourselves  from  the  crowd.  It  is  no 
easy  matter,  especially  for  the  ladies.  Our  own 
baggage-mules  head  in  every  direction.  Donkeys 
laden  with  mountains  of  brushwood  push  through 


A    MIXED   TRAIN  131 

the  throng,  scraping  right  and  left ;  camels  shamble 
against  us,  their  contemptuous  noses  in  the  air, 
stretching  their  long  necks  over  our  heads ;  market- 
women  from  Bethlehem  scream  at  us;  and  greasy 
pilgrims  block  our  way  and  curse  our  horses'  hoofs. 

One  by  one  we  emerge  and  get  into  a  straggling 
line,  and  begin  to  comprehend  the  size  of  our  ex- 
pedition. Our  dragoman  has  made  as  extensive 
preparations  as  if  we  were  to  be  the  first  to  occupy 
Gilgal  and  Jericho,  and  that  portion  of  the  Prom- 
ised Land.  We  are  equipped  equally  well  for 
fighting  and  for  famine.  A  party  of  Syrians,  who 
desire  to  make  the  pilgrimage  to  the  Jordan,  have 
asked  permission  to  join  us,  in  order  to  share  the 
protection  of  our  sheykh,  and  they  add  both  pic- 
turesqueness  and  strength  to  the  grand  cavalcade 
which  clatters  out  of  Jaffa  Gate  and  sweeps  round 
the  city  wall.  Heaven  keep  us  from  undue  pride 
in  our  noble  appearance ! 

Perhaps  our  train  would  impress  a  spectator  as 
somewhat  mixed,  and  he  would  be  unable  to  deter- 
mine the  order  of  its  march.  It  is  true  that  the 
horses  and  the  donkeys  and  the  mules  all  have 
different  rates  of  speed,  and  that  the  Syrian  horse 
has  only  two  gaits,  —  a  run  and  a  slow  walk.  As 
soon  as  we  gain  the  freedom  of  the  open  country, 
these  differences  develop.  The  ambitious  dragomen 
and  the  warlike  sheykh  put  their  horses  into  a  run 
and  scour  over  the  hills,  and  then  come  charging 
back  upon  us,  like  Don  Quixote  upon  the  flock  of 
sheep.  The  Syrians  imitate  this  madness.  The 
other  horses  begin  to  airitate  their  stiff  legs ;  the 


132  GOING   DOWN   TO   JERICHO 

donkeys  stand  still  and  protest  by  braying;  the 
pack-mules  get  temporarily  crazy,  charge  into  us 
with  the  protruding  luggage,  and  suddenly  wheel 
into  the  ditch  and  stop.  This  playfulness  is  re- 
peated in  various  ways,  and  adds  to  the  excitement 
without  improving  the  dignity  of  our  march. 

We  are  of  many  nationalities.  There  are  four 
Americans,  two  of  them  ladies.  The  Doctor,  who 
is  accustomed  to  ride  the  mustangs  of  New  Mexico 
and  the  wild  horses  of  the  Western  deserts,  en- 
deavors to  excite  a  spirit  of  emulation  in  his  stiff- 
kneed  animal,  but  with  little  success.  Our  drag- 
oman is  Egyptian,  a  decidedly  heavy  weight,  and 
sits  his  steed  like  a  pyramid. 

The  sheykh  is  a  young  man,  with  the  treacher- 
ous eye  of  an  eagle ;  a  handsome  fellow,  who  rides 
a  lean  white  horse,  anything  but  a  beauty,  and  yet 
of  the  famous  Nedjed  breed  from  Mecca.  This 
desert  warrior  wears  red  boots,  white  trousers  and 
skirt,  blue  jacket,  a  yellow  kufia,  confined  about 
the  head  by  a  black  cord  and  falling  upon  his 
shoulders,  has  a  long  rifle  slung  at  his  back,  an 
immense  Damascus  sword  at  his  side,  and  huge 
pistols,  with  carved  and  inlaid  stocks,  in  his  belt. 
He  is  a  riding  arsenal  and  a  visible  fraud,  this 
Bedawee  sheykh.  We  should  no  doubt  be  quite 
as  safe  without  him,  and  perhaps  less  liable  to  va- 
rious extortions.  But  on  the  road,  and  from  the 
moment  we  set  out,  we  meet  Bedaween,  single  and 
in  squads,  savage-looking  vagabonds,  every  one 
armed  with  a  gun,  a  long  knife,  and  pistols  with 
blunderbuss  barrels,  flaring  in  such  a  manner  as  to 


SYRIAN   PILGRIMS  133 

scatter  shot  over  an  acre  of  ground.  These  scare- 
crows are  apparently  paraded  on  the  highway  to 
make  travelers  think  it  is  insecure.  But  I  am 
persuaded  that  none  of  them  would  dare  molest 
any  pilgrim  to  the  Jordan. 

Our  allies,  the  Syrians,  pleasa  us  better.  There 
is  a  Frenchified  Syrian,  with  his  wife,  from  Man- 
sura,  in  the  Delta  of  Egypt.  The  wife  is  a  very 
pretty  woman  (would  that  her  example  were  more 
generally  followed  in  the  East),  with  olive  com- 
plexion, black  eyes,  and  a  low  forehead ;  a  native 
of  Sidon.  She  wears  a  dark  green  dress,  and  a 
yellow  kufia  on  her  head,  and  is  mounted  upon  a 
nude,  man -fashion,  but  upon  a  saddle  as  broad  as 
a  feather-bed.  Her  husband,  in  semi-Syrian  cos- 
tume, with  top-boots,  carries  a  gun  at  his  back  and 
a  frightful  knife  in  his  belt.  Her  brother,  who  is 
from  Sidon,  bears  also  a  gun,  and  wears  an  enor- 
mous sword.  Very  pleasant  people  these,  who 
have  armed  themselves  in  the  spirit  of  the  hunter 
rather  than  of  the  warrior,  and  are  as  completely 
equipped  for  the  chase  as  any  Parisian  who  ven- 
tures in  pursuit  of  game  into  any  of  the  dangerous 
thickets  outside  of  Paris. 

The  Sidon  wife  is  accompanied  by  two  servants, 
slaves  from  Soudan,  a  boy  and  a  girl,  each  about 
ten  years  old,  —  two  grinning,  comical  monkeys, 
who  could  not  by  any  possibility  be  of  the  slightest 
service  to  anybody,  unless  it  is  a  relief  to  their 
pretty  mistress  to  vent  her  ill-humor  upon  their 
irresponsible  persons.  You  couldn't  call  them 
handsome,  though  their  skins  are  of  dazzling  black, 


134  GOING   DOWN   TO    JERICHO 

and  their  noses  so  flat  that  you  cannot  see  them  in 
profile.  The  girl  wears  a  silk  gown,  which  reaches 
to  her  feet  and  gives  her  the  quaint  appearance  of 
an  old  woman,  and  a  yellow  vest ;  the  boy  is  clad 
in  motley  European  clothes,  bought  second-hand 
with  reference  to  his  growing  up  to  them,  —  upon 
which  event  the  trousers-legs  and  cuffs  of  his  coat 
could  be  turned  down,  —  and  a  red  fez  contrasting 
finely  with  his  black  face.  They  are  both  mounted 
on  a  decrepit  old  horse,  whose  legs  are  like  sled- 
stakes,  and  they  sit  astride  on  top  of  a  pile  of  bag- 
gage, beds,  and  furniture,  with  bottles  and  camp- 
kettles  jingling  about  them.  The  girl  sits  behind 
the  boy  and  clings  fast  to  his  waist  with  one  hand, 
while  with  the  other  she  holds  over  their  heads  a 
rent  white  parasol,  to  prevent  any  injury  to  their 
jet  complexions.  When  the  old  baggage -horse 
starts  occasionally  into  a  hard  tvot,  they  both  bob 
up  and  down,  and  strike  first  one  side  and  then 
the  other,  but  never  together;  when  one  goes  up 
the  other  goes  down,  as  if  they  were  moved  by 
different  springs ;  but  both  show  their  ivory  and 
seem  to  enjoy  themselves.  Heaven  knows  why 
they  should  make  a  pilgrimage  to  the  Jordan. 

Our  Abyssinian  servant,  Abdallah,  is  mounted 
also  on  a  pack-horse,  and  sits  high  in  the  air  amid 
bags  and  bundles ;  he  guides  his  brute  only  by  a 
halter,  and  when  the  animal  takes  a  fancy  to  break 
into  a  gallop,  there  is  a  rattling  of  dishes  and  ket- 
tles that  sets  the  whole  train  into  commotion ;  the 
boy's  fez  falls  farther  than  ever  back  on  his  head, 
his  teeth  shine,  and  his  eyes  dance  as  he  jolts  into 


THE   WILBERNESS   OF   JUD^A  135 

the  midst  of  the  mules  and  excites  a  panic,  which 
starts  everything  into  friskiness,  waking  up  even 
the  Soudan  party,  which  begins  to  bob  about  and 
grin.  There  are  half  a  dozen  mules  loaded  with 
tents  and  bed  furniture;  the  cook,  and  the  cook's 
assistants,  and  the  servants  of  the  kitchen  and  the 
camp  are  mounted  on  something,  and  the  train  is 
attended  besides  by  drivers  and  ostlers,  of  what 
nations  it  pleases  Heaven.  But  this  is  not  all. 
We  carry  with  us  two  hunting  dogs,  the  property 
of  the  Syrian.  The  dogs  are  not  for  use;  they  are 
a  piece  of  ostentation,  like  the  other  portion  of  the 
hunting  outfit,  and  contribute,  as  do  the  Soudan 
babies,  to  our  appearance  of  Oriental  luxury. 

We  straggle  down  through  the  Valley  of  Jehosh- 
aphat,  and  around  the  Mount  of  Olives  to  Beth- 
any ;  and  from  that  sightly  slope  our  route  is  spread 
before  us  as  if  we  were  looking  upon  a  map.  It 
lies  through  the  "wilderness  of  Judaea."  We  are 
obliged  to  revise  our  Western  notions  of  a  wilder- 
ness as  a  region  of  gross  vegetation.  The  Jews 
knew  a  wilderness  when  they  saw  it,  and  how  to 
name  it.  You  would  be  interested  to  know  what 
a  person  who  lived  at  Jerusalem,  or  anywhere 
along  the  backbone  of  Palestine,  would  call  a  wil- 
derness. Nothing  but  the  absolute  nakedness  of 
desolation  could  seem  to  him  dreary.  But  this 
region  must  have  satisfied  even  a  person  accustomed 
to  deserts  and  pastures  of  rocks.  It  is  a  jumble 
of  savage  hills  and  jagged  ravines,  a  land  of  lime- 
stone rocks  and  ledges,  whitish  gray  in  color,  glar- 
ing in  the  sun,  even  the  stones  wasted  by  age, 


136  GOING   DOWN   TO  ffERICHO 

relieved  nowhere  by  a  tree,  or  rejoiced  by  a  single 
blade  of  grass.  Wild  beasts  would  starve  in  it, 
the  most  industrious  bird  couldn't  collect  in  its 
length  and  breadth  enough  soft  material  to  make  a 
nest  of;  it  is  what  a  Jew  of  Hebron  or  Jerusalem 
or  Raman  would  call  a  "wilderness"  !  This  ex- 
hausts the  language  of  description.  How  vividly 
in  this  desolation  stands  out  the  figure  of  the  pro- 
phet of  God,  clothed  with  camel's  hair  and  with 
a  girdle  of  skin  about  his  loins,  "the  voice  of  one 
crying  in  the  wilderness." 

The  road  is  thronged  with  Jordan  pilgrims.  We 
overtake  them,  they  pass  us,  we  meet  them  in  an 
almost  continuous  train.  Most  of  them  are  peas- 
ants from  Armenia,  from  the  borders  of  the  Black 
Sea,  from  the  Caucasus,  from  Abyssinia.  The 
great  mass  are  on  foot,  trudging  wearily  along  with 
their  bedding  and  provisions,  the  thick -legged  wo- 
men carrying  the  heaviest  loads ;  occasionally  you 
see  a  pilgrim  asleep  by  the  roadside,  his  pillow 
a  stone.  But  the  travelers  are  by  no  means  all 
poor  or  unable  to  hire  means  of  conveyance,  —  you 
would  say  that  Judaea  had  been  exhausted  of  its 
beasts  of  burden  of  all  descriptions  for  this  pil- 
grimage, and  that  even  the  skeletons  had  been  ex- 
humed to  assist  in  it.  The  pilgrims  are  mounted 
on  sorry  donkeys,  on  wrecks  of  horses,  on  mules, 
sometimes  an  entire  family  on  one  animal.  Now 
and  then  we  encounter  a  "swell"  outfit,  a  wealthy 
Russian  well  mounted  on  a  richly  caparisoned 
horse  and  attended  by  his  servants;  some  ride  in 
palanquins,  some  in  chairs.  We  overtake  an  Eng- 


STRANGE   OUTFITS  137 

lish  party,  the  central  figure  of  which  is  an  elderly 
lady,  who  rides  in  a  sort  of  high  cupboard  slung  on 
poles,  and  borne  by  a  mule  before  and  a  mule  be- 
hind; the  awkward  vehicle  sways  and  tilts  back- 
wards and  forwards,  and  the  good  woman  looks 
out  of  the  window  of  her  coop  as  if  she  were  sea- 
sick of  the  world.  Some  ladies,  who  are  unaccus- 
tomed to  horses,  have  arm-chairs  strapped  upon 
the  horses'  backs,  in  which  they  sit.  Now  and 
then  two  chairs  are  strapped  upon  one  horse,  and 
the  riders  sit  back  to  back.  Sometimes  huge  pan- 
niers slung  on  the  sides  of  the  horse  are  used  in- 
stead of  chairs,  the  passengers  riding  securely  in 
them  without  any  danger  of  falling  out.  It  is 
rather  a  pretty  sight  when  each  basket  happens  to 
be  full  of  children.  There  is,  indeed,  no  end  to 
the  strange  outfits  and  the  odd  costumes.  Nearly 
all  the  women  who  are  mounted  at  all  are  perched 
upon  the  top  of  all  their  household  goods  and 
furniture,  astride  of  a  bed  on  the  summit.  There 
approaches  a  horse  which  seems  to  have  a  sofa  on 
its  back,  upon  which  four  persons  are  seated  in  a 
row,  as  much  at  ease  as  if  at  home ;  it  is  not,  how- 
ever, a  sofa;  four  baskets  have  been  ingeniously 
fastened  into  a  frame,  so  that  four  persons  can  ride 
in  them  abreast.  This  is  an  admirable  contrivance 
for  the  riders,  much  better  than  riding  in  a  row 
lengthwise  on  the  horse,  when  the  one  in  front  hides 
the  view  from  those  behind. 

Diverted  by  this  changing  spectacle,  we  descend 
from  Bethany.  At  first  there  are  wild-flowers  by 
the  wayside  and  in  the  fields,  and  there  is  a  flush 


138  GOING    DOWN    TO    JERICHO 

of  verdure  on  the  hills,  all  of  which  disappears 
later.  The  sky  is  deep  blue  and  cloudless,  the  air 
is  exhilarating;  it  is  a  day  for  enjoyment,  and 
everything  and  everybody  we  encounter  are  in  a 
joyous  mood,  and  on  good  terms  with  the  world. 
The  only  unamiable  exception  is  the  horse  with 
which  I  have  been  favored.  He  is  a  stocky  little 
stallion,  of  good  shape,  but  ignoble  breed,  and  the 
devil  —  which  is,  I  suppose,  in  the  horse  what  the 
old  Adam  is  in  man  —  has  never  been  cast  out  of 
him.  At  first  I  am  in  love  with  his  pleasant  gait 
and  mincing  ways,  but  I  soon  find  that  he  has 
eccentricities  that  require  the  closest  attention  on 
my  part,  and  leave  me  not  a  moment  for  the  scen- 
ery or  for  biblical  reflections.  The  beast  is  neither 
content  to  go  in  front  of  the  caravan  nor  in  the 
rear;  he  wants  society,  but  the  instant  he  gets 
into  the  crowd  he  lets  his  heels  fly  right  and  left. 
After  a  few  performances  of  this  sort,  and  when 
he  has  nearly  broken  the  leg  of  the  Syrian,  my  com- 
pany is  not  desired  any  more  by  any  one.  No  one 
is  willing  to  ride  within  speaking  distance  of  me. 
This  sort  of  horse  may  please  the  giddy  and 
thoughtless,  but  he  is  not  the  animal  for  me.  By 
the  time  we  reach  the  fountain  'Ain  el-Huad,  I 
have  quite  enough  of  him,  and  exchange  steeds 
with  the  dragoman,  much  against  the  latter's  fancy ; 
he  keeps  the  brute  the  remainder  of  the  day  can- 
tering over  stones  and  waste  places  along  the  road, 
and  confesses  at  night  that  his  bridle-hand  is  so 
swollen  as  to  be  useless. 

We  descend  a  steep  hill  to  this  fountain,  which 


THE    FOUNTAIN  *AIN    EL-HUAD  139 

flows  from  a  broken  Saracenic  arch,  and  waters  a 
valley  that  is  altogether  stony  and  unfertile  except 
in  some  patches  of  green.  It  is  a  general  halting- 
place  for  travelers,  and  presents  a  most  animated 
appearance  when  we  arrive.  Horses,  mules,  and 
men  are  struggling  together  about  the  fountain  to 
slake  their  thirst ;  but  there  is  no  trough  nor  any 
pool,  and  the  only  mode  to  get  the  water  is  to  catch 
it  in  the  mouth  as  it  drizzles  from  the  hole  in  the 
arch.  It  is  difficult  for  a  horse  to  do  this,  and  the 
poor  things  are  beside  themselves  with  thirst. 
Near  by  are  some  stone  ruins  in  which  a  man  and 
woman  have  set  up  a  damp  coffee-shop,  sherbet- 
shop,  and  smoking  station.  From  them  I  borrow 
a  shallow  dish,  and  succeed  in  getting  water  for 
my  horse,  an  experiment  which  seems  to  surprise 
all  nations.  The  shop  is  an  open  stone  shed  with 
a  dirt  floor,  offering  only  stools  to  the  customers ; 
yet  when  the  motley  crowd  are  seated  in  and 
around  it,  sipping  coffee  and  smoking  the  nar- 
ghilehs  (water  -  pipes)  with  an  air  of  leisure  as 
if  to-day  would  last  forever,  you  have  a  scene  of 
Oriental  luxury. 

Our  way  lies  down  a  winding  ravine.  The 
country  is  exceedingly  rough,  like  the  Wyoming 
hills,  but  without  trees  or  verdure.  The  bed  of 
the  stream  is  a  mass  of  rock  in  shelving  ledges ; 
all  the  rock  in  sight  is  a  calcareous  limestone.  Af- 
ter an  hour  of  this  sort  of  secluded  travel  we  ascend 
again  and  reach  the  Red  Khan,  and  a  scene  still 
more  desolate  because  more  extensive.  The  khan 
takes  its  name  from  the  color  of  the  rocks :  perched 


140  GOING    DOWN    TO    JERICHO 

upon  a  high  ledge  are  the  ruins  of  this  ancient 
caravansary,  little  more  now  than  naked  walls. 
We  take  shelter  for  lunch  in  a  natural  rock  grotto 
opposite,  exactly  the  shadow  of  a  rock  longed  for 
in  a  weary  land.  Here  we  spread  our  gay  rugs, 
the  servants  unpack  the  provision  hampers,  and 
we  sit  and  enjoy  the  wide  view  of  barrenness  and 
the  picturesque  groups  of  pilgrims.  The  spot  is 
famous  for  its  excellent  well  of  water.  It  is,  be- 
sides, the  locality  usually  chosen  for  the  scene  of 
the  adventure  of  the  man  who  went  down  to  Jeri- 
cho and  fell  among  thieves,  this  being  the  khan  at 
which  he  was  entertained  for  twopence.  We  take 
our  siesta  here,  reflecting  upon  the  great  advance 
in  hotel  prices,  and  endeavoring  to  re-create  some- 
thing of  that  past  when  this  was  the  highway  be- 
tween great  Jerusalem  and  the  teeming  plain  of 
the  Jordan.  The  Syro-Phoenician  woman  smoked 
a  narghileh,  and,  looking  neither  into  the  past  nor 
the  future,  seemed  to  enjoy  the  present. 

From  this  elevation  we  see  again  the  brown 
Jordan  Valley  and  the  Dead  Sea.  Our  road  is 
downward  more  precipitously  than  it  lias  been  be- 
fore. The  rocks  are  tossed  about  tumultuously, 
and  the  hills  are  rent,  but  there  is  no  evidence  of 
any  volcanic  action.  Some  of  the  rock  stratas  are 
bent,  as  you  see  the  granite  in  the  White  Moun- 
tains, but  this  peculiarity  disappears  as  we  ap- 
proach nearer  to  the  Jordan.  The  translator  of 
M.  Francois  Lenormant's  "Ancient  History  of 
the  East"  says  that  "the  miracles  which  accompa- 
nied the  entrance  of  the  Israelites  into  Palestine 


ELIJAH'S  HIDING-PLACE  141 

seem  such  as  might  have  been  produced  by  vol- 
canic agency."  No  doubt  they  might  have  been; 
but  this  whole  region  is  absolutely  without  any 
appearance  of  volcanic  disturbance. 

As  we  go  on,  we  have  on  our  left  the  most  re- 
markable ravine  in  Palestine ;  it  is  in  fact  a  canon 
in  the  rocks,  some  five  hundred  feet  deep,  the  sides 
of  which  are  nearly  perpendicular.  At  the  bottom 
of  it  flows  the  brook  Cherith,  finding  its  way  out 
into  the  Jordan  plain.  We  ride  to  the  brink  and 
look  over  into  the  abyss.  It  was  about  two  thou- 
sand seven  hundred  and  eighty -nine  years  ago,  and 
probably  about  this  time  of.  the  year  (for  the  brook 
went  dry  shortly  after),  that  Elijah,  having  in- 
curred the  hostility  of  Ahab,  who  held  his  luxu- 
rious court  at  Samaria,  by  prophesying  against 
him,  came  over  from  Gilead  and  hid  himself  in 
this  ravine. 

"Down  there,"  explains  Abd-el-Atti,  "the  pro- 
phet Elijah  fed  him  the  ravens  forty  days.  Not 
have  that  kind  of  ravens  now." 

Unattractive  as  this  abyss  is  for  any  but  a  tem- 
porary summer  residence,  the  example  of  Elijah 
recommended  it  to  a  great  number  of  people  in  a 
succeeding  age.  In  the  wall  of  the  precipice  are 
cut  grottos,  some  of  them  so  high  above  the  bed  of 
the  stream  that  they  are  apparently  inaccessible, 
and  not  unlike  the  tombs  in  the  high  cliffs  along 
the  Nile.  In  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries  monks 
swarmed  in  all  the  desert  places  of  Egypt  and 
Syria  like  rabbits;  these  holes,  near  the  scene  of 
Elijah's  miraculous  support,  were  the  abodes  of 


142  GOING    DOWN   TO    JERICHO 

Christian  hermits,  most  of  whom  starved  them- 
selves down  to  mere  skin  and  bones  waiting  for  the 
advent  of  the  crows.  On  the  ledge  above  are  the 
ruins  of  ancient  chapels,  which  would  seem  to  show 
that  this  was  a  place  of  some  resort,  and  that  the 
hermits  had  spectators  of  their  self-denial.  You 
might  as  well  be  a  woodchuck  and  sit  in  a  hole  as 
a  monk,  unless  somebody  comes  and  looks  at  you. 

As  we  advance,  the  Jordan  valley  opens  more 
broadly  upon  our  sight.  At  this  point,  which  is 
the  historical  point,  the  scene  of  the  passage  of  the 
Jordan  and  the  first  appearance  of  the  Israelitish 
clans  in  the  Promised  Land,  the  valley  is  ten  miles 
broad.  It  is  by  110  means  a  level  plain ;  from  the 
west  range  of  mountains  it  slopes  to  the  river,  and 
the  surface  is  broken  by  hillocks,  ravines,  and 
water-courses.  The  breadth  is  equal  to  that  be- 
tween the  Connecticut  River  at  Hartford  and  the 
Talcott  range  of  hills.  To  the  north  we  have  in 
view  the  valley  almost  to  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  and 
can  see  the  white  and  round  summit  of  Hermon 
beyond;  on  the  east  and  on  the  west  the  barren 
mountains  stretch  in  level  lines;  and  on  the  south 
the  blue  waters  of  the  Dead  Sea  continue  the  val- 
ley between  ranges  of  purple  and  poetic  rocky 
cliffs. 

The  view  is  magnificent  in  extent,  and  plain 
and  hills  glow  with  color  in  this  afternoon  light. 
Yonder,  near  the  foot  of  the  eastern  hills,  we  trace 
the  winding  course  of  the  Jordan  by  a  green  belt 
of  trees  and  bushes.  The  river  we  cannot  see,  for 
the  "bottom"  of  the  river,  to  use  a  Western 


THE   JORDAN    VALLEY  143 

phrase,  from  six  hundred  to  fifteen  hundred  feet 
in  breadth,  is  sunk  below  the  valley  a  hundred  feet 
and  more.  This  bottom  is  periodically  over- 
flowed. The  general  aspect  of  the  plain  is  that  of 
a  brown  desert,  the  wild  vegetation  of  which  is 
crisped  by  the  scorching  sun.  There  are,  however, 
threads  of  verdure  in  it,  where  the  brook  Cherith 
and  the  waters  from  the  fountain  'Am  es-Sultan 
wander  through  the  neglected  plain,  and  these 
strips  of  green  widen  into  the  thickets  about  the 
little  village  of  Riha,  the  site  of  ancient  Gilgal. 
This  valley  is  naturally  fertile ;  it  may  very  likely 
have  been  a  Paradise  of  fruit  -  trees  and  grass 
and  sparkling  water  when  the  Jews  looked  down 
upon  it  from  the  mountains  of  Moab ;  it  certainly 
bloomed  in  the  Roman  occupation ;  and  the  ruins 
of  sugar-mills  still  existing  show  that  the  crusad- 
ing Christians  made  the  cultivation  of  the  sugar- 
cane successful  here ;  it  needs  now  only  the  waters 
of  the  Jordan  and  the  streams  from  the  western 
foot  -  hills  directed  by  irrigating  ditches  over  its 
surface,  moistening  its  ashy  and  nitrous  soil,  to 
become  again  a  fair  and  smiling  land. 

Descending  down  the  stony  and  precipitous  road, 
\ve  turn  north,  still  on  the  slope  of  the  valley. 
The  scant  grass  is  already  crisped  by  the  heat,  the 
bushes  are  dry  skeletons.  A  ride  of  a  few  minutes 
brings  us  to  some  artitic  ial  mounds  and  ruins  of 
buildings  upon  the  bank  of  the  brook  Cherith. 
The  brickwork  is  the  fine  reticulated  masonry  such 
as  you  see  in  the  remains  of  Roman  villas  at  Tus- 
culum.  This  is  the  site  of  Herod's  Jericho,  the 


144  GOING   DOWN  TO   JERICHO 

Jericho  of  the  New  Testament.  But  the  Jericho 
which  Joshua  destroyed  and  the  site  of  which  he 
cursed,  the  Jericho  which  Hiel  rebuilt  in  the  days 
of  the  wicked  Ahab,  and  where  Elisha  abode  after 
the  translation  of  Elijah,  was  a  half  mile  to  the 
north  of  this  modern  town. 

We  have  some  difficulty  in  fording  the  brook 
Cherith,  for  the  banks  are  precipitous  and  the 
stream  is  deep  and  swift;  those  who  are  mounted 
upon  donkeys  change  them  for  horses,  the  Arab 
attendants  wade  in,  guiding  the  stumbling  animals 
which  the  ladies  ride,  the  lumbering  beast  with  the 
Soudan  babies  comes  splashing  in  at  the  wrong  mo- 
ment, to  the  peril  of  those  already  in  the  torrent, 
and  is  nearly  swept  away ;  the  sheykh  and  the  ser- 
vants who  have  crossed  block  the  narrow  landing ; 
but  with  infinite  noise  and  floundering  about  we 
all  come  safely  over,  and  gallop  along  a  sort  of 
plateau,  interspersed  with  thorny  nubk  and  scraggy 
bushes.  Going  on  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  and 
encountering  cultivated  spots,  we  find  our  tents  al- 
ready pitched  on  the  bushy  bank  of  a  little  stream 
that  issues  from  the  fountain  of  'Ain  es-Sultan  a 
few  rods  above.  Near  the  camp  is  a  high  mound 
of  rubbish.  This  is  the  site  of  our  favorite  Jericho, 
a  name  of  no  majesty  like  that  of  Rome,  and  en- 
deared to  us  by  no  associations  like  Jerusalem,  but 
almost  as  widely  known  as  either;  probably  even 
its  wickedness  would  not  have  preserved  its  repu- 
tation, but  for  the  singular  incident  that  attended 
its  first  destruction.  Jericho  must  have  been  a 
city  of  some  consequence  at  the  time  of  the  arrival 


THE    FALL    OF    JERICHO  145 

of  the  Israelites ;  we  gain  an  idea  of  the  civilization 
of  its  inhabitants  from  the  nature  of  the  plunder 
that  Joshua  secured ;  there  were  vessels  of  silver 
and  of  gold,  and  of  brass  and  iron ;  and  this  was 
over  fourteen  hundred  years  before  Christ. 

Before  we  descend  to  our  encampment,  we  pause 
for  a  survey  of  this  historic  region.  There,  to- 
wards Jordan,  among  the  trees,  is  the  site  of  Gil- 
gal  (another  name  that  shares  the  half -whimsical 
reputation  of  Jericho),  where  the  Jews  made  their 
first  camp.  The  king  of  Jericho,  like  his  royal 
cousins  round  about,  had  "no  more  spirit  in  him" 
when  he  saw  the  Israelitish  host  pass  the  Jordan. 
He  shut  himself  up  in  his  insufficient  walls,  and 
seems  to  have  made  no  attempt  at  a  defense.  Over 
this  upland  the  Jews  swarmed,  and  all  the  armed 
host  with  seven  priests  and  seven  rams'  horns 
marched  seven  days  round  and  round  the  doomed 
city,  and  on  the  seventh  day  the  people  shouted  the 
walls  down.  Every  living  thing  in  the  city  was  de- 
stroyed except  Rahab  and  her  family,  the  town  was 
burned,  and  for  five  hundred  years  thereafter  no 
man  dared  to  build  upon  its  accursed  foundations. 
Why  poor  Jericho  was  specially  marked  out  for 
malediction  we  are  not  told. 

When  it  was  rebuilt  in  Ahab's  time,  the  sons  of 
the  prophets  found  it  an  agreeable  place  of  resi- 
dence ;  large  numbers  of  them  were  gathered  here 
while  Elijah  lived,  and  they  conversed  with  that 
prophet  when  he  was  on  his  last  journey  through 
this  valley,  which  he  had  so  often  traversed,  com- 
pelled by  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord.  No  incident  in 


146  GOING    DOWN    TO    JERICHO 

the  biblical  story  so  strongly  appeals  to  the  ima- 
gination, nor  is  there  anything  in  the  poetical  con- 
ception of  any  age  so  sublime  as  the  last  passage 
of  Elijah  across  this  plain  and  his  departure  into 
heaven  beyond  Jordan.  When  he  came  from 
Bethel  to  Jericho,  he  begged  Elisha,  his  atten- 
dant, to  tarry  here ;  but  the  latter  would  not  yield 
either  to  his  entreaty  or  to  that  of  the  sons  of  the 
prophets.  We  can  see  the  way  the  two  prophets 
went  hence  to  Jordan.  Fifty  men  of  the  sons  of 
the  prophets  went  and  stood  to  view  them  afar  off, 
and  they  saw  the  two  stand  by  Jordan.  Already 
it  was  known  that  Elijah  was  to  disappear,  and 
the  two  figures,  lessening  in  the  distance,  were  fol- 
lowed with  a  fearful  curiosity.  Did  they  pass  on 
swiftly,  and  was  there  some  premonition,  in  the 
wind  that  blew  their  flowing  mantles,  of  the  heav- 
enly gale?  Pjlijah  smites  the  waters  with  his  man- 
tle, the  two  pass  over  dry-shod,  and  "as  they  still 
went  on  and  talked,  behold  there  appeared  a 
chariot  of  fire,  and  horses  of  fire,  and  parted  them 
both  asunder;  and  Elijah  went  up  by  a  whirlwind 
into  heaven.  And  Elisha  saw  it,  and  he  cried, 
My  father,  my  father,  the  chariot  of  Israel  and 
the  horsemen  thereof.  And  he  saw  him  no  more." 
Elisha  returned  to  Jerich;)  and  abode  there  while 
the  sons  of  the  prophets  sought  for  Elijah  beyond 
Jordan  three  days,  but  did  not  find  him.  And  the 
men  of  the  city  said  to  Elisha,  "Behold,  I  pray 
thee,  the  situation  of  this  city  is  pleasant,  as  my 
lord  seeth,  but  the  water  is  naught  and  the  ground 
barren."  Then  Elisha  took  salt  and  healed  the 


A   REGION   OF   MIRACLES  147 

spring  of  water;  and  ever  since,  to  this  day,  the 
fountain,  now  called  ' Ain  es-Sultan,  has  sent  forth 
sweet  water. 

Turning  towards  the  northwest,  we  see  the  pas- 
sage through  the  mountain,  by  the  fountain  'Ain 
Duk,  to  Bethel.  It  was  out  of  some  woods  there, 
where  the  mountain  is  now  bare,  that  Elisha  called 
the  two  she-bears  which  administered  that  dreadful 
lesson  to  the  children  who  derided  his  baldness. 
All  the  region,  indeed,  recalls  the  miracles  of 
Elisha.  It  was  probably  here  that  Naaman  the 
Syrian  came  to  be  healed;  there  at  Gilgal  Elisha 
took  the  deatli  out  of  the  great  pot  in  which  the 
sons  of  the  prophets  were  seething  their  pottage ; 
and  it  was  there  in  the  Jordan  that  he  made  the 
iron  axe  to  swim. 

Of  all  this  celebrated  and  ill-fated  Jericho, 
nothing  now  remains  but  a  hillock  and  Elisha's 
spring.  The  wild  beasts  of  the  desert  prowl  about 
it,  and  the  night-bird  hoots  over  its  fall,  —  a  sort 
of  echo  of  the  shouts  that  brought  down  its  walls. 
Our  tents  are  pitched  near  the  hillock,  and  the 
animals  are  picketed  on  the  open  ground  before 
them  by  the  stream.  The  Syrian  tourist  in  these 
days  travels  luxuriously.  Our  own  party  has  four 
tents,  —  the  kitchen  tent,  the  dining  tent,  and  two 
for  lodging.  They  are  furnished  with  tables, 
chairs,  all  the  conveniences  of  the  toilet,  and  car- 
peted with  bright  rugs.  The  cook  is  an  artist,  and 
our  table  is  one  that  would  have  astonished  the 
sons  of  the  prophets.  The  Syrian  party  have  their 
own  tents;  a  family  from  Kentucky  has  camped 


148  GOING   DOWN   TO   JERICHO 

near  ^y ;  and  we  give  to  Jericho  a  settled  appear- 
ance. The  elder  sheykh  accompanies  the  other 
party  of  Americans,  so  that  we  have  now  all  the 
protection  possible. 

The  dragoman  of  the  Kentuckians  we  have  al- 
ready encountered  in  Egypt  and  on  the  journey, 
and  been  impressed  by  his  respectable  gravity.  It 
would  perhaps  be  difficult  for  him  to  tell  his  nation- 
ality or  birthplace ;  he  wears  the  European  dress, 
and  his  gold  spectacles  and  big  stomach  would 
pass  him  anywhere  for  a  German  professor.  He 
seems  out  of  place  as  a  dragoman,  but  if  any  one 
desired  a  savant  as  a  companion  in  the  East,  he 
would  be  the  man.  Indeed,  his  employers  soon  dis- 
cover that  his  forte  is  information,  and  not  work. 
While  the  other  servants  are  busy  about  the  camps 
Antonio  comes  over  to  our  tent,  and  opens  up  the 
richness  of  his  mind,  and  illustrates  his  capacity 
as  a  Syrian  guide. 

"You  know  that  mountain,  there,  with  the 
chapel  on  top?"  he  asks. 

"No." 

"  Well,  that  is  Mt.  Nebo,  and  that  one  next  to 
it  is  Pisgah,  the  mountain  of  the  prophet  Moses." 

Both  these  mountains  are  of  course  on  the  other 
side  of  the  Jordan  in  the  Moab  range,  but  they 
are  not  identified,  —  except  by  Antonio.'  The 
sharp  mountain  behind  us  is  Quarantania,  the 
Mount  of  Christ's  Temptation.  Its  whole  side  to 
the  summit  is  honeycombed  with  the  cells  of  her- 
mits who  once  dwelt  there,  and  it  is  still  the  resort 
of  many  pilgrims. 


A    MEMORABLE   NIGHT  149 

The  evening  is  charming,  warm  but  not  depress- 
ing; the  atmosphere  is  even  exhilarating,  and  this 
surprises  us,  since  we  are  so  far  below  the  sea 
level.  The  Doctor  says  that  it  is  exactly  like 
Colorado  on  a  July  night.  We  have  never  been 
so  low  before,  not  even  in  a  coal-mine.  We  are 
not  only  about  thirty-seven  hundred  feet  below 
Jerusalem,  we  are  over  twelve  hundred  below  the 
level  of  the  sea.  Sitting  outside  the  tent  under 
the  starlight,  we  enjoy  the  novelty  and  the  mys- 
teriousness  of  the  scene.  Tents,  horses  picketed 
among  the  bushes,  the  firelight,  the  groups  of  ser- 
vants and  drivers  taking  their  supper,  the  figure  of 
an  Arab  from  Gilgal  coming  forward  occasionally 
out  of  the  darkness,  the  Dinging,  the  occasional 
violent  outbreak  of  kicking  and  squealing  among 
the  ill-assorted  horses  and  mules,  the  running  of 
loose-robed  attendants  to  the  rescue  of  some  poor 
beast,  the  strong  impression  of  the  locality  upon 
us,  and  I  know  not  what  Old  Testament  flavor 
about  it  all,  conspire  to  make  the  night  memorable. 

"This  place  very  dangerous,"  says  Antonio, 
who  is  standing  round,  bursting  with  information. 
"Him  berry  wise,"  is  Abd-el-Atti's  opinion  of 
him.  "Know  a  great  deal;  I  t'ink  him  not  live 


"What  is  the  danger?  "  we  ask. 

"Wild  beasts,  wild  boars,  hyenas,  —  all  these 
b'ush  full  of  them.  It  was  three  years  now  I  was 
camped  here  with  Baron  Kronkheit.  'Bout 
twelve  o'clock  I  heard  a  noise  and  came  out. 
Right  there,  not  twenty  feet  from  here,  stood  a 


150  GOING   DOWN   TO    JERICHO 

hyena  as  big  as  a  donkey,  his  two  eyes  like  fire. 
I  did  not  shoot  him  for  fear  to  wake  up  the 
Baron." 

"Did  he  kill  any  of  your  party?" 

"Not  any  man.  In  the  morning  I  find  he  has 
carried  off  our  only  mutton." 

Notwithstanding  these  dangers,  the  night  passes 
without  alarm,  except  the  barking  of  jackals  about 
the  kitchen  tent.  In  the  morning  I  ask  Antonio  if 
he  heard  the  hyenas  howling  in  the  night.  "Yes, 
indeed,  plenty  of  them;  they  came  very  near  my 
tent." 

We  are  astir  at  sunrise,  breakfast,  and  start  for 
the  Jordan.  It  is  the  opinion  of  the  dragoman 
and  the  sheykh  that  we  should  go  first  to  the  Dead 
Sea.  It  is  the  custom.  Every  tourist  goes  to  the 
Dead  Sea  first,  bathes,  and  then  washes  off  the 
salt  in  the  Jordan.  No  one  ever  thought  of  going 
to  the  Jordan  first.  It  is  impossible.  We  must 
visit  the  Dead  Sea,  and  then  lunch  at  the  Jor- 
dan. We  wished,  on  the  contrary,  to  lunch  at  the 
Dead  Sea,  at  which  we  should  otherwise  have  only 
a  very  brief  time.  We  insisted  upon  our  own 
programme,  to  the  great  disgust  of  all  our  camp 
attendants,  who  predicted  disaster. 

The  Jordan  is  an  hour  and  a  half  from  Jericho ; 
that  is  the  distance  to  the  bathing-place  of  the 
Greek  pilgrims.  We  descend  all  the  way.  Wild 
vegetation  is  never  wanting ;  wild-flowers  abound ; 
we  pass  through  thickets  of  thorns,  bearing  the 
yellow  "apples  of  the  Dead  Sea,"  which  grow  all 
over  this  plain.  At  Gilgal  (now  called  Riha)  we 


MODERN   GILGAL  151 

find  what  is  probably  the  nastiest  village  in  the 
world,  and  its  miserable  inhabitants  are  credited 
with  all  the  vices  of  Sodom.  The  wretched  huts 
are  surrounded  by  a  thicket  of  mibk  as  a  protec- 
tion against  the  plundering  Bedaween.  The 
houses  are  rudely  built  of  stone,  with  a  covering 
of  cane  or  brush,  and  each  one  is  inclosed  in  a 
hedge  of  thorns.  These  thorns,  which  grow 
rankly  on  the  plain,  are  those  of  which  the  "crown 
of  thorns"  was  plaited,  and  all  devout  pilgrims 
carry  away  some  of  them.  The  habitations  within 
these  thorny  inclosures  are  filthy  beyond  descrip- 
tion, and  poverty-stricken.  And  this  is  in  a  wa- 
tered plain  which  would  bloom  with  all  manner  of 
fruits  with  the  least  care.  Indeed,  there  are  a  few 
tangled  gardens  of  the  rankest  vegetation ;  in  them 
we  see  the  orange,  the  fig,  the  deceptive  pome- 
granate with  its  pink  blossoms,  and  the  olive.  As 
this  is  the  time  of  pilgrimage,  a  company  of  Turk- 
ish soldiers  from  Jerusalem  is  encamped  at  the 
village,  and  the  broken  country  about  it  is  covered 
with  tents,  booths,  shops,  kitchens,  and  presents 
the  appearance  of  a  fair  and  a  camp-meeting  com- 
bined. There  are  hundreds,  perhaps  thousands,  of 
pilgrims,  who  go  every  morning,  as  long  as  they 
remain  here,  to  dip  in  the  Jordan.  Near  the  vil- 
lage rises  the  square  tower  of  an  old  convent,  prob- 
ably, which  is  dignified  with  the  name  of  the 
"house  of  Zaechseus."  This  plain  was  once  famed 
for  its  fertility:  it  was  covered  with  gardens  and 
palm-groves;  the  precious  balsam,  honey,  and 
henna  were  produced  here;  the  balsam  gardens 


152  GOING   DOWN   TO   JERICHO 

were  the  royal  gift  of  Antony  to  Cleopatra,  who 
transferred  the  balsam  -  trees  to  Heliopolis  in 
Egypt. 

As  we  ride  away  from  Gilgal  and  come  upon  a 
more  open  and  desert  plain,  I  encounter  an  eagle 
sitting  on  the  top  of  a  thorn-tree,  not  the  noblest 
of  his  species,  but,  for  Palestine,  a  very  fair  eagle. 
Here  is  a  chance  for  the  Syrian  hunter;  he  is 
armed  with  gun  and  pistols ;  he  has  his  dogs ;  now, 
if  ever,  is  the  time  for  him  to  hunt,  and  I  fall  back 
and  point  out  his  opportunity.  He  does  not  em- 
brace it.  It  is  an  easy  shot;  perhaps  he  is  look- 
ing for  wild  boars;  perhaps  he  is  a  tender-minded 
hunter.  At  any  rate,  he  makes  no  effort  to  take 
the  eagle,  and  when  I  ride  forward  the  bird  grace- 
fully rises  in  the  air,  sweeping  upward  in  magnifi- 
cent circles,  now  veering  towards  the  Mount  of 
Temptation,  and  now  towards  Nebo,  but  always  as 
serene  as  the  air  in  which  he  floats. 

And  now  occurs  one  of  those  incidents  which 
are  not  rare  to  travelers  in  Syria,  but  which  are 
rare  and  scarcely  believed  elsewhere.  As  the 
eagle  hangs  for  a  second  motionless  in  the  empy- 
rean far  before  me,  he  drops  a  feather.  I  see  the 
gray  plume  glance  in  the  sun  and  swirl  slowly 
down  in  the  lucid  air.  In  Judaea  every  object  is 
as  distinct  as  in  a  photograph.  You  can  see 
things  at  a  distance  you  can  make  no  one  believe 
at  home.  The  eagle  plume,  detached  from  the 
noble  bird,  begins  its  leisurely  descent. 

I  see  in  a  moment  my  opportunity.  I  might 
never  have  another.  All  travelers  in  Syria  whose 


A    STARTLING   ADVENTURE  153 

books  I  have  ever  read  have  one  or  more  startling 
adventures.  Usually  it  is  with  a  horse.  I  do  not 
remember  any  with  a  horse  and  an  eagle.  I  deter- 
mine at  once  to  have  one.  Glancing  a  moment  at 
the  company  behind  me,  and  then  fixing  my  eye 
on  the  falling  feather,  I  speak  a  word  to  my  steed, 
and  dart  forward. 

A  word  was  enough.  The  noble  animal  seemed 
to  comprehend  the  situation.  He  was  of  the  pur- 
est Arab  breed ;  four  legs,  four  white  ankles,  small 
ears,  slender  pasterns,  nostrils  thin  as  tissue  paper, 
and  dilating  upon  the  fall  of  a  leaf;  an  eye  ter- 
rible in  rage,  but  melting  in  affection;  a  round 
barrel;  gentle  as  a  kitten,  but  spirited  as  a  game- 
cock. His  mother  was  a  Nedjed  mare  from  Me- 
dina, who  had  been  exchanged  by  a  Bedawee  chief 
for  nine  beautiful  Circassians,  but  only  as  a  com- 
promise after  a  war  by  the  Pasha  of  Egypt  for 
her  possession.  Her  father  was  one  of  the  most 
respectable  horses  in  Yemen.  Neither  father, 
mother,  nor  colt  had  ever  eaten  anything  but  se- 
lected dates. 

At  the  word,  Abdallah  springs  forward,  bound- 
ing over  the  sand,  skimming  over  the  thorn  bushes, 
scattering  the  Jordan  pilgrims  right  and  left.  lie 
does  not  seem  to  be  so  much  a  horse  as  a  creation 
of  the  imagination,  —  a  Pegasus.  At  every  leap 
we  gain  upon  the  feather,  but  it  is  still  far  ahead 
of  us,  and  swirling  down,  down,  as  the  air  takes 
the  plume  or  the  weight  of  gravity  acts  upon  the 
quill.  Abdallah  does  not  yet  know  the  object  of 
our  fearful  pace,  but  his  docility  is  such  that  every 


154  GOING    DOWN   TO    JERICHO 

time  I  speak  to  him  he  seems  to  shoot  out  of  him-  , 
self  in  sudden  bursts  of  enthusiasm.  The  terrible 
strain  continues  longer  than  I  had  supposed  it 
would,  for  I  had  undercalculated  both  the  height 
at  which  the  feather  was  cast  and  my  distance  to 
the  spot  upon  which  it  must  fall.  None  but  a 
horse  fed  on  dates  could  keep  up  the  awful  gait. 
We  fly  and  the  feather  falls;  and  it  falls  with 
increasing  momentum.  It  is  going,  going  to  the 
ground,  and  we  are  not  there.  At  this  instant, 
when  I  am  in  despair,  the  feather  twirls,  and  Ab- 
dallah  suddenly  casts  his  eye  up  and  catches  the 
glint  of  it.  The  glance  suffices  to  put  him  com- 
pletely in  possession  of  the  situation.  He  gives  a 
low  neigh  of  joy;  I  plunge  both  spurs  into  his 
flanks  about  six  or  seven  inches ;  he  leaps  into 
the  air,  and  sails  like  a  bird,  —  of  course  only  for 
a  moment;  but  it  is  enough;  I  stretch  out  my 
hand  and  catch  the  eagle's  plume  before  it  touches 
the  ground.  We  light  on  the  other  side  of  a  clump 
of  thorns,  and  Abdallah  walks  on  as  quietly  as 
if  nothing  had  happened ;  he  was  not  blown ;  not 
a  hair  of  his  glossy  coat  was  turned.  I  have  the 
feather  to  show. 

Pilgrims  are  plenty,  returning  from  the  river  in 
a  continuous  procession,  in  numbers  rivaling  the 
children  of  Israel  when  they  first  camped  at  Gil- 
gal.  We  descend  into  the  river-bottom,  wind 
through  the  clumps  of  tangled  bushes,  and  at 
length  reach  an  open  place  where  the  river  for  a 
few  rods  is  visible.  The  ground  is  trampled  like  a 
watering-spot  for  cattle :  the  bushes  are  not  large 


JORDAN'S  STORMY  BANKS  155 

enough  to  give  shade;  there  are  no  trees  of  size 
except  one  or  two  at  the  water's  edge;  the  banks 
are  slimy,  there  seems  to  be  no  comfortable  place 
to  sit  except  on  your  horse  —  on  Jordan's  stormy 
banks  I  stand  and  cast  a  wistful  eye ;  the  wistful 
eye  encounters  nothing  agreeable. 

The  Jordan  here  resembles  the  Arkansas  above 
Little  Rock,  says  the  Doctor;  I  think  it  is  about 
the  size  of  the  Concord  where  it  flows  through  the 
classic  town  of  that  name  in  Massachusetts;  but 
it  is  much  swifter.  Indeed,  it  is  a  rapid  current, 
which  would  sweep  away  the  strongest  swimmer. 
The  opposite  bank  is  steep,  and  composed  of  sandy 
loam  or  marl.  The  hither  bank  is  low,  but  slip- 
pery, and  it  is  difficult  to  dip  up  water  from  it. 
Close  to  the  shore  the  water  is  shallow,  and  a  rope 
is  stretched  out  for  the  protection  of  the  bathers. 
This  is  the  Greek  bathing-place,  but  we  are  too 
late  to  see  the  pilgrims  enter  the  stream;  crowds 
of  them  are  still  here,  cutting  canes  to  carry  away, 
and  filling  their  tin  cans  with  the  holy  water.  We 
taste  the  water,  which  is  very  muddy,  and  find  it 
warm  but  not  unpleasant.  We  are  glad  that  we 
have  decided  to  lunch  at  the  Dead  Sea,  for  a  more 
uninviting  place  than  this  could  not  be  found; 
above  and  below  this  spot  are  thickets  and  boggy 
ground.  It  is  beneath  the  historical  and  religious 
dignity  of  the  occasion  to  speak  of  lunch,  but  all 
tourists  know  what  importance  it  assumes  on  such 
an  excursion,  and  that  their  high  reflections  seldom 
come  to  them  on  the  historical  spot.  Indeed,  one 
must  be  removed  some  distance  from  the  vulgar 


156  GOING   DOWN   TO   JERICHO 

Jordan  before  he  can  glow  at  the  thought  of  it. 
In  swiftness  and  volume  it  exceeds  our  expecta- 
tions, but  its  beauty  is  entirely  a  creation  of  the 
imagination. 

We  had  the  opportunity  of  seeing  only  a  solitary 
pilgrim  bathe.  This  was  a  shock-headed  Greek 
young  man,  who  reluctantly  ventured  into  the  dirty 
water  up  to  his  knees  and  stood  there  shivering, 
and  whimpering  over  the  orders  of  the  priest  on 
the  bank,  who  insisted  upon  his  dipping.  Perhaps 
the  boy  lacked  faith ;  perhaps  it  was  his  first  ex- 
periment with  water;  at  any  rate,  he  stood  there 
until  his  spiritual  father  waded  in  and  ducked  the 
blubbering  and  sputtering  neophyte  under.  This 
was  not  a  baptism,  but  a  meritorious  bath.  Some 
seedy  fellahs  from  Gilgal  sat  on  the  bank  fishing. 
When  I  asked  them  if  they  had  anything,  they 
produced  from  the  corners  of  their  gowns  some 
Roman  copper  coins,  picked  up  at  Jericho,  and 
which  they  swore  were  dropped  there  by  the  Jews 
when  they  assaulted  the  city  with  the  rams'  horns. 
These  idle  fishermen  caught  now  and  then  a  rather 
soft,  light-colored  perch,  with  large  scales,  —  a 
sickly-looking  fish,  which  the  Greeks,  however, 
pronounced  "tayeb." 

We  leave  the  river  and  ride  for  an  hour  and  a 
half  across  a  nearly  level  plain,  the  earth  of  which 
shows  salts  here  and  there,  dotted  with  a  low,  fat- 
leaved  plant,  something  like  the  American  sage- 
bush.  Wild-flowers  enliven  the  way,  and  although 
the  country  is  not  exactly  cheerful,  it  has  no  ap- 
pearance of  desolation  except  such  as  comes  from 
lack  of  water. 


THE   DEAD    SEA  157 

The  Dead  Sea  is  the  least  dead  of  any  sheet  of 
water  I  know.  When  we  first  arrived  the  waters 
were  a  lovely  blue,  which  changed  to  green  in  the 
shifting  light,  but  they  were  always  animated  and 
sparkling.  It  has  a  sloping  sandy  beach,  strewn 
with  pebbles,  up  which  the  waves  come  with  a 
pleasant  murmur.  The  plain  is  hot;  here  we  find 
a  cool  breeze.  The  lovely  plain  of  water  stretches 
away  to  the  south  between  blue  and  purple  ranges 
of  mountains,  which  thrust  occasionally  bold  prom- 
ontories into  it,  and  add  a  charm  to  the  perspec- 
tive. 

The  sea  is  not  inimical  to  either  vegetable  or 
animal  life  on  its  borders.  Before  we  reach  it  I 
hear  bird-notes  high  in  the  air  like  the  song  of  a 
lark;  birds  are  flitting  about  the  shore  and  sing- 
ing, and  gulls  are  wheeling  over  the  water;  a  rab- 
bit runs  into  his  hole  close  by  the  beach.  Growing 
close  to  the  shore  is  a  high  woody  stonewort,  with 
abundance  of  fleshy  leaves  and  thousands  of  blos- 
soms, delicate  protruding  stamens  hanging  over 
the  waters  of  the  sea  itself.  The  plant  with  the 
small  yellow  fruit,  which  we  take  to  be  that  of  the 
apples  of  Sodom,  also  grows  here.  It  is  the  Sola- 
num  spinosa,  closely  allied  to  the  potato,  egg- 
plant, and  tomato ;  it  has  a  woody  stem  with  sharp 
recurved  thorns,  sometimes  grows  ten  feet  high, 
and  is  now  covered  with  round  orange  berries. 

It  is  not  the  scene  of  desolation  that  we  expected, 
although  some  branches  and  trunks  of  trees, 
gnarled  and  bleached,  the  drift-wood  of  the  Jor- 
dan, strewn  along  the  beach,  impart  a  dead  aspect 


158  GOING    DOWN   TO   JERICHO 

to  the  shore.  These  dry  branches  are,  however, 
useful;  we  build  them  up  into  a  wigwam,  over 
which  we  spread  our  blankets ;  under  this  we  sit, 
sheltered  from  the  sun,  enjoying  the  delightful 
breeze  and  the  cheering  prospect  of  the  sparkling 
sea.  The  improvident  Arabs,  now  that  it  is  im- 
possible to  get  fresh  water,  begin  to  want  it;  they 
have  exhausted  their  own  jugs  and  ours,  having 
neglected  to  bring  anything  like  an  adequate  sup- 
ply. To  see  water  and  not  be  able  to  drink  it  is 
too  much  for  their  philosophy. 

The  party  separates  along  the  shore,  seeking  for 
places  where  bushes  grow  out  upon  tongues  of  land 
and  offer  shelter  from  observation  for  the  bather. 
The  first  impression  we  have  of  the  water  is  its 
perfect  clearness.  It  is  the  most  innocent  water 
in  appearance,  and  you  would  not  suspect  its  salt- 
ness  and  extreme  bitterness.  No  fish  live  in  it; 
the  water  is  too  salt  for  anything  but  codfish.  Its 
buoyancy  has  not  been  exaggerated  by  travelers, 
but  I  did  not  expect  to  find  bathing  in  it  so  agree- 
able as  it  is.  The  water  is  of  a  happy  temperature, 
soft,  not  exactly  oily,  but  exceedingly  agreeable  to 
the  skin,  and  it  left  a  delicious  sensation  after  the 
bath;  but  it  is  necessary  to  be  careful  not  to  get 
any  of  it  into  the  eyes.  For  myself,  I  found  swim- 
ming in  it  delightful,  and  I  wish  the  Atlantic 
Ocean  were  like  it;  nobody  then  would  ever  be 
drowned.  Floating  is  no  effort;  on  the  contrary, 
sinking  is  impossible.  The  only  annoyance  in 
swimming  is  the  tendency  of  the  feet  to  strike  out 
of  water,  and  of  the  swimmer  to  go  over  on  his 


BATHING    IN    THE    DEAD    SEA  159 

head.  When  I  stood  upright  in  the  water  it  came 
about  to  my  shoulders ;  but  it  was  difficult  to  stand, 
from  the  constant  desire  of  the  feet  to  go  to  the 
surface.  I  suppose  that  the  different  accounts  of 
travelers  in  regard  to  the  buoyancy  of  the  water 
are  due  to  the  different  specific  gravity  of  the  writ- 
ers. We  cannot  all  be  doctors  of  divinity.  I 
found  that  the  best  way  to  float  was  to  make  a  bow 
of  the  body  and  rest  with  feet  and  head  out  of 
water,  which  was  something  like  being  in  a  cush- 
ioned chair.  Even  then  it  requires  some  care  not 
to  turn  over.  The  bather  seems  to  himself  to  be 
a  cork,  and  has  little  control  of  his  body. 

About  two  hundred  yards  from  the  shore  is  an 
artificial  island  of  stone,  upon  which  are  remains 
of  regular  masonry.  Probably  some  crusader  had 
a  castle  there.  We  notice  upon  looking  down  into 
the  clear  depths,  some  distance  out,  in  the  sun- 
light, that  the  lake  seems,  as  it  flows,  to  have 
translucent  streaks,  which  are  like  a  thick  solution 
of  sugar,  showing  how  completely  saturated  it  is 
with  salts.  It  is,  in  fact,  twelve  hundred  and 
ninety-two  feet  below  the  Mediterranean,  nothing 
but  a  deep,  half-dried-up  sea ;  the  chloride  of  mag- 
nesia, which  gives  it  its  extraordinarily  bitter 
taste,  does  not  crystallize  and  precipitate  itself  so 
readily  as  the  chloride  of  sodium. 

We  look  in  vain  for  any  evidence  of  volcanic 
disturbance  or  action  of  fire.  Whatever  there  may 
be  at  the  other  end  of  the  lake,  there  is  none  here. 
We  find  no  bitumen  or  any  fire-stones,  although 
the  black  stones  along  the  beach  may  have  been 


160  GOING   DOWN    TO    JERICHO 

supposed  to  be  bituminous.  All  the  pebbles  and 
all  the  stones  of  the  beach  are  of  chalk  flint,  and 
tell  no  story  of  fire  or  volcanic  fury. 

Indeed,  the  lake  has  no  apparent  hostility  to  life. 
An  enterprising  company  could  draw  off  the  Jor- 
dan thirty  miles  above  here  and  make  all  this  val- 
ley a  garden,  producing  fruits  and  sugar-cane  and 
cotton,  and  this  lake  one  of  the  most  lovely  water- 
ing-places in  the  world.  I  have  no  doubt  mala- 
dies could  be  discovered  which  its  waters  are  ex- 
actly calculated  to  cure.  I  confidently  expect  to 
hear  some  day  that  great  hotels  are  built  upon  this 
shore,  which  are  crowded  with  the  pious,  the  fash- 
ionable, and  the  diseased.  I  seem  to  see  this  blue 
and  sunny  lake  covered  with  a  gay  multitude  of 
bathers,  floating  about  the  livelong  day  on  its  sur- 
face ;  parties  of  them  making  a  pleasure  excursion 
to  the  foot  of  Pisgah;  groups  of  them  chatting, 
singing,  amusing  themselves  as  they  would  under 
the  shade  of  trees  on  land,  having  umbrellas  and 
floating  awnings,  and  perhaps  servants  to  bear 
their  parasols ;  couples  floating  here  and  there  at 
will  in  the  sweet  dream  of  a  love  that  seems  to  be 
suspended  between  the  heaven  and  the  earth.  No 
one  will  be  at  any  expense  for  boats,  for  every  one 
will  be  his  own  boat,  and  launch  himself  without 
sail  or  oars  whenever  he  pleases.  How  dainty  will 
be  the  little  feminine  barks  that  the  tossing  mar- 
iner will  hail  on  that  peaceful  sea  !  No  more  wail- 
ing of  wives  over  husbands  drowned  in  the  waves, 
no  more  rescuing  of  limp  girls  by  courageous  lov- 
ers. People  may  be  shipwrecked  if  there  conies  a 


A   PERILOUS   LUNCH  161 

squall  from  Moab,  but  they  cannot  be  drowned. 
I  confess  that  this  picture  is  the  most  fascinating 
that  I  have  been  able  to  conjure  up  in  Syria. 

We  take  our  lunch  under  the  wigwam,  fanned 
by  a  pleasant  breeze.  The  persons  who  partake 
it  present  a  pleasing  variety  of  nations  and  colors, 
and  the  "spread"  itself,  though  simple,  was  gath- 
ered from  many  lands.  Some  one  took  the  trouble 
to  note  the  variety :  raisins  from  Damascus,  bread, 
chicken,  and  mutton  from  Jerusalem,  white  wine 
from  Bethlehem,  figs  from  Smyrna,  cheese  from 
America,  dates  from  Nubia,  walnuts  from  Ger- 
many, water  from  Elisha's  well,  eggs  from  Hen. 

We  should  like  to  linger  till  night  in  this  en- 
chanting place,  but  for  an  hour  the  sheykh  and 
dragoman  have  been  urging  our  departure;  men 
and  beasts  are  represented  as  suffering  for  water, 
—  all  because  we  have  reversed  the  usual  order  of 
travel.  As  soon  as  we  leave  the  lake  we  lose  its 
breeze,  the  heat  becomes  severe ;  the  sandy  plain 
is  rolling  and  a  little  broken,  but  it  has  no  shade, 
no  water,  and  is  indeed  a  weary  way.  The  horses 
feel  the  want  of  water  sadly.  The  Arabs,  whom 
we  had  supposed  patient  in  deprivation,  are  almost 
crazy  with  thirst.  After  we  have  ridden  for  over 
an  hour  the  sheykh' s  horse  suddenly  wheels  off  and 
runs  over  the  plain ;  my  nag  follows  him,  appar- 
ently without  reason,  and  in  spite  of  my  efforts  I 
am  run  away  with.  The  horses  dash  along,  aiid 
soon  the  whole  cavalcade  is  racing  after  us.  The 
object  is  soon  visible, — a  fringe  of  trees,  which 
denotes  a  brook ;  the  horses  press  on,  dash  down 


162  GOING    DOWN    TO    JERICHO 

the  steep  bank,  and  plunge  their  heads  into  the 
water  up  to  the  eyes.  The  Arabs  follow  suit. 
The  sheykh  declares  that  in  fifteen  minutes  more 
both  men  and  horses  would  have  been  dead. 
Never  before  did  anybody  lunch  at  the  Dead  Sea. 

When  the  train  comes  up,  the  patient  donkey 
that  Madame  rides  is  pushed  through  the  brook 
and  not  permitted  to  wet  his  muzzle.  I  am  indig- 
nant at  such  cruelty,  and  spring  off  my  horse,  push 
the  two  donkey-boys  aside,  and  lead  the  eager  don- 
key to  the  stream.  At  once  there  is  a  cry  of  pro- 
test from  dragomans,  sheykh,  and  the  whole  crowd, 
"No  drink  donkey,  no  drink  donkey,  no  let  don- 
key, bad  for  donkey."  There  could  not  have  been 
a  greater  outcry  among  the  Jews  when  the  ark  of 
the  covenant  was  likely  to  touch  the  water.  I  de- 
sist from  my  charitable  efforts.  Why  the  poor 
beast,  whose  whole  body  craved  water  as  much  as 
that  of  the  horse,  was  denied  it,  I  know  not.  It 
is  said  that  if  you  give  a  donkey  water  on  the  road 
he  won't  go  thereafter.  Certainly  the  donkey  is 
never  permitted  to  drink  when  traveling.  I  think 
the  patient  and  chastened  creature  will  get  more  in 
the  next  world  than  his  cruel  masters. 

Nearly  all  the  way  over  the  plain  we  have  the 
long  snowy  range  of  Mt.  Hermon  in  sight,  a  noble 
object,  closing  the  long  northern  vista,  and  a  re- 
freshment to  the  eyes  wearied  by  the  parched  vege- 
tation of  the  valley  and  dazzled  by  the  aerial  shim- 
mer. If  we  turn  from  the  north  to  the  south,  we 
have  the  entirely  different  but  equally  poetical 
prospect  of  the  blue  sea  inclosed  in  the  receding 


THE    FOUNTAIN    OF   ELISHA  163 

hills,  which  fall  away  into  the  violet  shade  of  the 
horizon.  The  Jordan  Valley  is  unique ;  by  a  ge- 
ologic fault  it  is  dropped  over  a  thousand  feet 
below  the  sea-level;  it  is  guarded  by  mountain- 
ranges  which  are  from  a  thousand  to  two  thousand 
feet  high ;  at  one  end  is  a  mountain  ten  thousand 
feet  high,  from  which  the  snow  never  disappears ; 
at  the  other  end  is  a  lake  forty  miles  long,  of  the 
saltest  and  bitterest  water  in  the  world.  All  these 
contrasts  the  eye  embraces  at  one  point. 

We  dismount  at  the  camp  of  the  Russian  pil- 
grims by  Riha,  and  walk  among  the  tents  and 
booths.  The  sharpers  of  Syria  attend  the  stran- 
gers, tempt  them  with  various  holy  wares,  and 
entice  them  into  their  dirty  coffee-shops.  It  is  a 
scene  of  mingled  credulity  and  knavery,  of  devo- 
tion and  traffic.  There  are  great  booths  for  the 
sale  of  vegetables,  nuts,  and  dried  fruit.  The 
whole  may  be  sufficiently  described  as  a  camp- 
meeting  without  any  prayer-tent. 

At  sunset  I  have  a  quiet  hour  by  the  fountain 
of  Elisha.  It  is  a  remarkable  pool.  Under  the 
ledge  of  limestone  rocks  the  water  gushes  out  with 
considerable  force,  and  in  such  volume  as  to  form 
a  large  brook  which  flows  out  of  the  basin  and 
murmurs  over  a  stony  bed.  You  cannot  recover 
your  surprise  to  see  a  river  in  this  dry  country 
burst  suddenly  out  of  the  ground.  A  group  of  na- 
tive women  have  come  to  the  pool  with  jars,  and 
they  stay  to  gossip,  sitting  about  the  edge  upon  the 
stones  with  their  feet  in  the  water.  One  of  them 
wears  a  red  gown,  and  her  cheeks  are  as  red  as  her 


164  GOING   DOWN   TO  JERICHO 

dress;  indeed,  1  have  met  several  women  to-day 
who  had  the  complexion  of  a  ripe  Flemish  Beauty 
pear.  As  it  seems  to  be  the  fashion,  I  also  sit  on 
the  bank  of  the  stream  with  my  feet  in  the  warm 
swift  water,  and  enjoy  the  sunset  and  the  strange 
concourse  of  pilgrims  who  are  gathering  about  the 
well.  They  are  worthy  Greeks,  very  decent  people, 
men  and  women,  who  salute  me  pleasantly  as  they 
arrive,  and  seem  to  take  my  participation  in  the 
bath  as  an  act  of  friendship. 

Just  below  the  large  pool,  by  a  smaller  one,  a 
Greek  boy,  having  bathed,  is  about  to  dress,  and 
I  am  interested  to  watch  the  process.  The  first 
article  to  go  on  is  a  white  shirt ;  over  this  he  puts 
on  two  blue  woolen  shirts;  he  then  draws  on  a 
pair  of  large,  loose  trousers;  into  these  the  shirts 
are  tucked,  and  the  trousers  are  tied  at  the  waist, 
—  he  is  bothered  with  neither  pins  nor  buttons. 
Then  comes  the  turban,  which  is  a  soft  gray  and 
yellow  material;  a  red  belt  is  next  wound  twice 
about  the  waist;  the  vest  is  yellow  and  open  in 
front ;  and  the  costume  is  completed  by  a  jaunty 
jacket  of  yellow,  prettily  embroidered.  The  heap 
of  clothes  on  the  bank  did  not  promise  much,  but 
the  result  is  a  very  handsome  boy,  dressed,  I  am 
sure,  most  comfortably  for  this  climate.  While  I 
sit  here  the  son  of  the  sheykh  rides  his  horse  to 
the  pool.  He  is  not  more  than  ten  years  old,  is 
very  smartly  dressed  in  gay  colors,  and  exceedingly 
handsome,  although  he  has  somewhat  the  supercil- 
ious manner  of  a  lad  born  in  the  purple.  The 
little  prince  speaks  French,  and  ostentatiously  dis- 


A   NATIVE   DANCE  165 

plays  in  his  belt  a  big  revolver.  I  am  glad  of  the 
opportunity  of  seeing  one  of  the  desert  robbers  in 
embryo. 

When  it  is  dusk  we  have  an  invasion  from  the 
neighboring  Bedaween,  an  imposition  to  which  all 
tourists  are  subjected,  it  being  taken  for  granted 
that  we  desire  to  see  a  native  dance.  This  is  one 
of  the  ways  these  honest  people  have  of  levying 
tribute ;  by  the  connivance  of  our  protectors,  the 
head  sheykhs,  the  entertainment  is  forced  upon  us, 
and  the  performers  will  not  depart  without  a  lib- 
eral backsheesh.  We  are  already  somewhat  famil- 
iar with  the  fascinating  dances  of  the  Orient,  and 
have  only  a  languid  curiosity  about  those  of  the 
Jordan ;  but  before  we  are  aware  there  is  a  crowd 
before  our  tents,  and  the  evening  is  disturbed  by 
doleful  howling  and  drum-thumping.  The  scene 
in  the  flickering  firelight  is  sufficiently  fantastic. 

The  men  dance  first.  Some  twenty  or  thirty  of 
them  form  in  a  half  circle,  standing  close  together ; 
their  gowns  are  in  rags,  their  black  hair  is  tossed 
in  tangled  disorder,  and  their  eyes  shine  with  ani- 
mal wildness.  The  only  dancing  they  perform 
consists  in  a  violent  swaying  of  the  body  from  side 
to  side  in  concert,  faster  and  faster  as  the  excite- 
ment rises,  with  an  occasional  stamping  of  the  feet, 
and  a  continual  howling  like  darwishes.  Two  vag- 
abonds step  into  the  focus  of  the  half  circle  and 
hop  about  in  the  most  stiff-legged  manner,  swing- 
ing enormous  swords  over_their  heads,  and  giving 
from  time  to  time  a  war-whoop,  —  it  seems  to  be 
precisely  the  dance  of  the  North  American  Indians. 


166  GOING    DOWN   TO    JERICHO 

We  are  told,  however,  that  the  howling  is  a  song, 
and  that  the  song  relates  to  meeting  the  enemy 
and  demolishing  him.  The  longer  the  perform- 
ance goes  on  the  less  we  like  it,  for  the  uncouthness 
is  not  varied  by  a  single  graceful  motion,  and  the 
monotony  becomes  unendurable.  We  long  for  the 
women  to  begin. 

When  the  women  begin,  we  wish  we  had  the 
men  back  again.  Creatures  uglier  and  dirtier  than 
these  hags  could  not  be  found.  Their  dance  is 
much  the  same  as  that  of  the  men,  a  semicircle, 
with  a  couple  of  women  to  jump  about  and  whirl 
swords.  But  the  women  display  more  fierceness 
and  more  passion  as  they  warm  to  their  work,  and 
their  shrill  cries,  disheveled  hair,  loose  robes,  and 
frantic  gestures  give  us  new  ideas  of  the  capacity 
of  the  gentle  sex;  you  think  that  they  would  not 
only  slay  their  enemies,  but  drink  their  blood  and 
dance  upon  their  fragments.  Indeed,  one  of  their 
songs  is  altogether  belligerent;  it  taunts  the  men 
with  cowardice,  it  scoffs  them  for  not  daring  to 
fight,  it  declares  that  the  women  like  the  sword 
and  know  how  to  use  it,  —  and  thus,  and  thus,  and 
thus,  lunging  their  swords  into  the  air,  would  they 
pierce  the  imaginary  enemy.  But  these  sweet 
creatures  do  not  sing  altogether  of  war;  they  sing 
of  love  in  the  same  strident  voices  and  fierce  man- 
ner :  "  My  lover  will  meet  me  by  the  stream,  he 
will  take  me  over  the  water." 

When  the  performance  is  over  they  all  clamor 
for  backsheesh;  it  is  given  in  a  lump  to  their 
sheykh,  and  they  retire  into  the  bushes  and 


ABYSSINIANS    FROM   GONDAR  167 

wrangle  over  its  distribution.  The  women  return 
to  us  and  say,  "Why  you  give  our  backsheesh 
to  sheykh?  We  no  get  any.  Men  get  all."  It 
seems  that  women  are  animated  nowadays  by  the 
same  spirit  the  world  over,  and  make  the  same  just 
complaints  of  the  injustice  of  men. 

When  we  turn  in,  there  is  a  light  gleaming  from 
a  cell  high  up  on  Mt.  Temptation,  where  some 
modern  pilgrim  is  playing  hermit  for  the  night. 

We  are  up  early  in  the  morning,  and  prepare 
for  the  journey  to  Jerusalem.  Near  our  camp 
some  Abyssinian  pilgrims,  Christians  so  called, 
have  encamped  in  the  bushes,  a  priest  and  three 
or  four  laymen,  the  cleverest  and  most  decent 
Abyssinians  we  have  met  with.  They  are  from 
Gondar,  and  have  been  a  year  and  a  half  on  their 
pilgrimage  from  their  country  to  the  Jordan. 
The  priest  is  severely  ill  with  a  fever,  and  his  con- 
dition excites  the  compassion  of  Abd-el-Atti,  who 
procures  for  him  a  donkey  to  ride  back  to  the  city. 
About  the  only  luggage  of  the  party  consists  of 
sacred  books,  written  on  parchment  and  preserved 
with  great  care,  among  them  the  Gospel  of  St. 
John,  the  Psalms,  the  Pentateuch,  and  volumes 
of  prayers  to  the  Virgin.  They  are  willing  to  ex- 
change some  of  these  manuscripts  for  silver,  and 
we  make  up  besides  a  little  purse  for  the  sick  man."* 
These  Abyssinian  Christians  when  at  home  live 
under  the  old  dispensation,  rather  than  the  new. 
holding  rather  to  the  law  of  Moses  than  of  Christ, 
and  practice  generally  all  the  vices  of  all  ages; 
the  colony  of  them  at  Jerusalem  is  a  disreputable 


168  GOING   DOWN   TO   JERICHO 

lot  of  lewd  beggars;  so  that  we  are  glad  to  find 
some  of  the  race  who  have  gentle  manners  and  are 
outwardly  respectable.  To  be  sure,  we  had  come 
a  greater  distance  than  they  to  the  Jordan,  but 
they  had  been  much  longer  on  the  way. 

The  day  is  very  hot ;  the  intense  sun  beats  upon 
the  white  limestone  rocks  and  is  reflected  into  the 
valleys.  Our  view  in  returning  is  better  than  it 
was  in  coming;  the  plain  and  the  foot  of  the  pass 
are  covered  with  a  bloom  of  lilac-colored  flowers. 
We  meet  and  pass  more  pilgrims  than  before. 
We  overtake  them  resting  or  asleep  by  the  road- 
side, in  the  shade  of  the  rocks.  They  all  carry 
bundles  of  sticks  and  canes  cut  on  the  banks  of 
the  Jordan,  and  most  of  them  Jordan  water  in 
cans,  bottles,  and  pitchers.  There  are  motley 
loads  of  baggage,  kitchen  utensils,  beds,  children. 
We  see  again  two,  three,  and  four  on  one  horse 
or  mule,  and  now  and  then  a  row,  as  if  on  a 
bench,  across  the  horse's  back,  taking  up  the  whole 
road. 

We  overtake  one  old  woman,  a  Russian,  who 
cannot  be  less  than  seventy,  with  a  round  body, 
and  legs  as  short  as  ducks'  and  as  big  as  the 
"limbs"  of  a  piano.  Her  big  feet  are  incased  in 
straw  shoes,  the  shape  of  a  long  vegetable-dish. 
She  wears  a  short  calico  gown,  an  old  cotton  hand- 
kerchief inwraps  her  gray  head,  she  carries  on  her 
back  a  big  bundle  of  clothing,  an  extra  pair  of 
straw  shoes,  a  coffee-pot,  and  a  saucepan,  and  she 
staggers  under  a  great  bundle  of  canes  on  her 
shoulder.  Poor  old  pilgrim!  I  should  like  tq 


A   NOBLE   SHEYKH  169 

give  the  old  mother  my  horse  and  ease  her  way  to 
the  heavenly  city ;  but  I  reflect  that  this  would  de- 
tract from  the  merit  of  her  pilgrimage.  There  are 
men  also  as  old  hobbling  along,  but  usually  not  so 
heavily  laden.  One  ancient  couple  are  riding  in 
the  deep  flaps  of  a  pannier,  hanging  each  side  of 
a  mule;  they  can  just  see  each  other  across  the 
mule's  back,  but  the  swaying,  sickening  motion  of 
the  pannier  evidently  lessens  their  interest  in  life 
and  in  each  other. 

Our  Syrian  allies  are  as  brave  as  usual.  The 
Soudan  babies  did  not  go  to  the  Jordan  or  the 
Dead  Sea,  and  are  consequently  fresh  and  full  of 
antics.  The  Syrian  armament  has  not  thus  far 
been  used ;  eagles,  rabbits,  small  game  of  all  sorts, 
have  been  disregarded ;  neither  of  the  men  has  un- 
slung  his  gun  or  drawn  his  revolvers.  The  hunt- 
ing dogs  have  not  once  been  called  on  to  hunt  any- 
thing, and  now  they  are  so  exhausted  by  the  heat 
that  their  master  is  obliged  to  carry  them  all  the 
way  to  Jerusalem ;  one  of  the  hounds  he  has  in  his 
arms  and  the  other  is  slung  in  a  pannier  under  the 
saddle,  his  master's  foot  resting  in  the  other  side 
to  balance  the  dog.  The  poor  creature  looks  out 
piteously  from  his  swinging  cradle.  It  is  the 
most  inglorious  hunting-expedition  J  have  ever 
been  attached  to. 

Our  sheykh  becomes  more  and  more  friendly. 
He  rides  up  to  me  occasionally,  and,  nobly  strik- 
ing his  breast,  exclaims,  "Me  !  sheykh,  Jordan, 
Jerusalem,  Mar  Saba,  Hebron,  all  round;  me, 
big."  Sometimes  he  ends  the  interview  with  a 


170  GOING    DOWN    TO    JERICHO 

demand  for  tobacco,  and  again  with  a  hint  of  the 
backsheesh  he  expects  in  Jerusalem.  I  want  to 
tell  him  that  he  is  exactly  like  our  stately  red  man 
at  home,  with  his  "Me!  Big  Injun.  Chaw-to- 
bac?" 

We  are  very  glad  to  get  out  of  the  heat  at  noon 
and  take  shelter  in  the  rock  grotto  at  the  Red 
Khan.  We  sit  here  as  if  in  a  box  at  the  theatre, 
and  survey  the  passing  show.  The  Syro-Phosni- 
cian  woman  smokes  her  narghileh  again,  the  dogs 
crouching  at  her  feet,  and  the  Soudan  babies  are 
pretending  to  wait  on  her,  and  tumbling  over  each 
other  and  spilling  everything  they  attempt  to  carry. 
The  woman  says  they  are  great  plagues  to  her,  and 
cost  thirty  napoleons  each  in  Soudan.  As  we  sit 
here  after  lunch,  an  endless  procession  passes  be- 
fore us,  —  donkeys,  horses,  camels  in  long  strings 
tied  together,  and  pilgrims  of  all  grades;  and  as 
they  come  up  the  hill  one  after  the  other,  showing 
their  heads  suddenly,  it  is  just  as  if  they  appeared 
on  the  stage ;  and  they  all  —  Bedaween,  Negroes, 
Russians,  Copts,  Circassians,  Greeks,  Soudan 
slaves,  and  Arab  masters  —  seem  struck  with  a 
"glad  siirprise  "  upon  seeing  us,  and  tarry  long 
enough  for  us  to  examine  them. 

Suddenly  presents  himself  a  tall,  gayly  dressed, 
slim  fellow  from  Soudan  (the  slave  of  the  sheykh), 
showing  his  white  teeth,  and  his  face  beaming 
with  good-nature.  lie  is  so  peculiarly  black  that 
we  ask  him  to  step  forward  for  closer  inspection. 
Abd-el-Atti,  who  expresses  great  admiration  for 
him,  gets  a  coal  from  the  fire,  and  holds  it  up  by 


A    DIGNIFIED    GALGAM  171 

his  cheek;  the  skin  has  the  advantage  of  the  coal, 
not  only  in  lustre  but  in  depth  of  blackness.  He 
says  that  he  is  a  Galgam,  a  tribe  whose  virtues 
Abd-el- Atti  indorses :  "  Thim  very  sincere,  trusty, 
thim  good  breed." 

When  we  have  made  the  acquaintance  of  the 
Galgam  in  this  thorough  manner,  he  asks  for  back- 
sheesh.  The  Doctor  offers  him  a  copper  coin. 
This,  without  any  offense  in  his  manner,  and 
with  the  utmost  courtesy,  he  refuses,  bows  very 
low,  says  "Thanks,"  with  a  little  irony,  and  turns 
away.  In  a  few  moments  he  comes  back,  opens 
his  wallet,  takes  out  two  silver  franc  pieces,  hands 
them  to  the  Doctor,  says  with  a  proud  politeness, 
"Backsheesh,  Bedawee!"  bows,  runs  across  the 
hill,  catches  his  horse,  and  rides  gallantly  away. 
It  is  beautifully  done.  Once  or  twice  during  the 
ride  to  Jerusalem  we  see  him  careering:  over  the 

O 

hills,  and  he  approaches  within  hail  at  Bethany, 
but  he  does  not  lower  his  dignity  by  joining  us 
again. 

The  heat  is  intense  until  we  reach  the  well  within 
a  mile  of  Bethany,  where  we  find  a  great  concourse 
of  exhausted  pilgrims.  On  the  way,  wherever  there 
is  an  open  field  that  admits  of  it,  we  have  some  dis- 
play of  Bedawee  horsemanship.  The  white  Arab 
mare  which  the  sheykh  rides  is  of  pure  blood  and 
cost  him  £200,  although  I  should  select  her  as  a 
broken-down  stage-horse.  These  people  ride  "all 
abroad,"  so  to  say,  arms,  legs,  accoutrements  fly- 
ing; but  they  stick  on,  which  is  the  principal  thing: 
and  the  horses  over  the  rough  ground,  soft  fields, 


172  GOING   DOWN   TO   JERICHO 

and  loose  stones,  run,  stop  short,  wheel  in  a  flash, 
and  exhibit  wonderful  training  and  bottom. 

The  high  opinion  we  had  formed  of  the  proud 
spirit  and  generosity  of  the  Bedawee,  by  the  inci- 
dent at  the  Red  Khan,  was  not  to  be  maintained 
after  our  return  to  Jerusalem.  Another  of  our 
Oriental  illusions  was  to  be  destroyed  forever. 
The  cool  acceptance  by  the  Doctor  of  the  two 
francs  so  loftily  tendered,  as  a  specimen  of  Beda- 
wee backsheesh,  was  probably  unexpected,  and 
perhaps  unprovided  for  by  adequate  financial  ar- 
rangements on  the  part  of  the  Galgam.  At  any 
rate,  that  evening  he  was  hovering  about  the  hotel, 
endeavoring  to  attract  the  attention  of  the  Doctor, 
and  evidently  unwilling  to  believe  that  there  could 
exist  in  the  heart  of  the  howadji  the  mean  inten- 
tion of  retaining  those  francs.  The  next  morning 
he  sent  a  friend  to  the  Doctor  to  ask  him  for  the 
money.  The  Doctor  replied  that  he  should  never 
think  of  returning  a  gift,  especially  one  made  with 
so  much  courtesy;  that,  indeed,  the  amount  of  the 
money  was  naught,  but  that  he  should  keep  it  as 
a  souvenir  of  the  noble  generosity  of  his  Bedawee 
friend.  This  sort  of  sentiment  seemed  inexplicable 
to  the  Oriental  mind.  The  son  of  the  desert  was 
as  much  astonished  that  the  Frank  should  retain 
his  gift,  as  the  Spanish  gentleman  who  presents  his 
horse  to  his  guest  would  be  if  the  guest  should 
take  it.  The  offer  of  a  present  in  the  East  is  a 
flowery  expression  of  a  sentiment  that  does  not 
exist,  and  its  acceptance  necessarily  implies  a  re- 
turn of  something  of  greater  value.  After  another 


BEDAWEE    BACKSHEESH  173 

day  of  anxiety  the  proud  and  handsome  slave  came 
in  person  and  begged  for  the  francs  until  he  re- 
ceived them.  He  was  no  better  than  his  master, 
the  noble  sheykh,  who  waylaid  us  during  the  re- 
mainder of  our  stay  for  additional  sixpences  in 
backsheesh.  O  superb  Bedawee,  we  did  not  be- 
grudge the  money,  but  our  lost  ideal! 


VI 


BETHLEHEM   AND  MAR   SABA 

ETHLEHEM  lies  about  seven  miles 
south  of  Jerusalem.  It  is  also  a  hill 
village,  reposing  upon  a  stony  promon- 
tory that  is  thrust  out  eastward  from 
the  central  mountain-range ;  the  abrupt  slopes  below 
three  sides  of  it  are  terraced;  on  the  north  is  a 
valley  which  lies  in  a  direct  line  between  it  and 
.Jerusalem;  on  the  east  are  the  yawning  ravines 
and  the  "wilderness"  leading  to  the  Dead  Sea; 
on  the  south  is  the  wild  country  towards  Hebron, 
and  the  sharp  summit  of  the  Frank  mountain  in 
the  distance.  The  village  lies  on  the  ridge;  and 
on  the  point  at  the  east  end  of  it,  overlooking  a 
vast  extent  of  seamed  and  rocky  and  jagged  coun- 
try, is  the  gloomy  pile  of  convents,  chapels,  and 
churches  that  mark  the  spot  of  the  Nativity. 

From  its  earliest  mention  till  now  the  home  of 
shepherds  and  of  hardy  cultivators  of  its  rocky 
hillsides,  it  has  been  noted  for  the  free  spirit  and 
turbulence  of  its  inhabitants.  The  primal  charac- 
ter of  a  place  seems  to  have  the  power  of  perpetu- 
ating itself  in  all  changes.  Bethlehem  never  seems 
to  have  been  afflicted  with  servility.  During  the 


BETHLEHEM  175 

period  of  David's  hiding  in  the  Cave  Adullam  the 
warlike  Philistines  occupied  it,  but  David  was  a 
fit  representative  of  the  pluck  and  steadfastness  of 
its  people.  Since  the  Christian  era  it  has  been  a 
Christian  town,  as  it  is  to-day,  and  the  few  Mos- 
lems who  have  settled  there,  from  time  to  time, 
have  found  it  more  prudent  to  withdraw  than  to 
brave  its  hostility.  Its  women  incline  to  be  hand- 
some, and  have  rather  European  than  Oriental  fea- 
tures, and  they  enjoy  the  reputation  of  unusual 
virtue ;  the  men  are  industrious,  and  seem  to  have 
more  self-respect  than  the  Syrians  generally. 

Bethlehem  is  to  all  the  world  one  of  the  sweet- 
est of  words.  A  tender  and  romantic  interest  is 
thrown  about  it  as  the  burial-place  of  Rachel,  as 
the  scene  of  Ruth's  primitive  story,  and  of  David's 
boyhood  and  kingly  consecration ;  so  that  no  other 
place  in  Judaea,  by  its  associations,  was  so  fit  to  be 
the  gate  through  which  the  Divine  Child  should 
come  into  the  world.  And  the  traveler  to-day 
can  visit  it  with,  perhaps,  less  shock  to  his  feelings 
of  reverence,  certainly  with  a  purer  and  simpler 
enjoyment,  than  any  other  place  in  Holy  Land. 
He  finds  its  ruggedness  and  desolateness  pictur- 
esque, in  the  light  of  old  song  and  story,  and  even 
the  puerile  inventions  of  monkish  credulity  do  not 
affect  him  as  elsewhere. 

From  Jerusalem  we  reach  Bethlehem  by  follow- 
ing a  curving  ridge,  —  a  lovely  upland  ride,  on 
account  of  the  extensive  prospect  and  the  breeze, 
and  because  it  is  always  a  relief  to  get  out  of  the 
city.  The  country  is,  however,  as  stony  as  the 


176  BETHLEHEM    AND   MAR    SABA 

worst  portions  of  New  England,  —  the  mountain 
sheep-pastures;  thick,  double  stone-walls  inclos- 
ing small  fields  do  not  begin  to  exhaust  the  stones. 
On  both  sides  of  the  ridge  are  bare,  unproductive 
hills,  but  the  sides  of  the  valleys  are  terraced,  and 
covered  with  a  good  growth  of  olive-trees.  These 
hollows  were  no  doubt  once  very  fruitful  by  as- 
siduous cultivation,  in  spite  of  the  stones.  Beth- 
lehem, as  we  saw  it  across  a  deep  ravine,  was  like 
a  castle  on  a  hill;  there  is  nowhere  level  ground 
enough  for  a  table  to  stand,  off  the  ridges,  and  we 
looked  in  vain  for  the  "plains  of  Bethlehem  "  about 
which  we  had  tried,  trustfully,  to  sing  in  youth. 

Within  a  mile  of  Bethlehem  gate  we  came  to 
the  tomb  of  Rachel,  standing  close  by  the  high- 
way. "And  Rachel  died,  and  was  buried  in  the 
way  to  Ephrath,  which  is  Beth-lehem.  And  Jacob 
set  a  pillar  upon  her  grave :  that  is  the  pillar  of 
Rachel's  grave  unto  this  day."  This  is  the  testi- 
mony of  the  author  of  Genesis,  who  had  not  seen 
the  pillar  which  remained  to  his  day,  but  repeated 
the  tradition  of  the  sons  of  Jacob.  What  remained 
of  this  pillar,  after  the  absence  of  the  Israelites  for 
some  five  centuries  from  Bethlehem,  is  uncertain ; 
but  it  may  be  supposed  that  some  spot  near  Beth- 
lehem was  identified  as  the  tomb  of  Rachel  upon 
their  return,  and  that  the  present  site  is  the  one 
then  selected.  It  is  possible,  of  course,  that  the 
tradition  of  the  pagan  Canaanites  may  have  pre- 
served the  recollection  of  the  precise  spot.  At  any 
rate,  Christians  seem  to  agree  that  this  is  one  of 
the  few  ancient  sites  in  Judaea  which  are  authentic, 


THE   TOMB    OF    RACHEL  177 

and  the  Moslems  pay  it  equal  veneration.  The 
square,  unpretentious  building  erected  over  it  is  of 
modern  construction,  and  the  pilgrim  has  to  con- 
tent himself  with  looking  at  a  sort  of  Moslem  tomb 
inside,  and  reflecting,  if  he  can,  upon  the  pathetic 
story  of  the  death  of  the  mother  of  Joseph. 

There  is,  alas !  everywhere  in  Judaea  something 
to  drive  away  sentiment  as  well  as  pious  feeling. 
The  tomb  of  Rachel  is  now  surrounded  by  a  Mos- 
lem cemetery,  and  as  we  happened  to  be  there  on 
Thursday  we  found  ourselves  in  the  midst  of  a 
great  gathering  of  women,  who  had  come  there, 
according  to  their  weekly  custom,  to  weep  and  to 
wail. 

You  would  not  see  in  farthest  Nubia  a  more  bar- 
barous assemblage,  and  not  so  fierce  an  one.  In 
the  presence  of  these  wild  mourners  the  term  "gen- 
tler sex "  has  a  ludicrous  sound.  Yet  we  ought 
not  to  forget  that  we  were  intruders  upon  their 
periodic  grief,  attracted  to  their  religious  demon- 
stration merely  by  curiosity,  and  fairly  entitled  to 
nothing  but  scowls  and  signs  of  aversion.  I  am 
sure  that  we  should  give  bold  Moslem  intruders 
upon  our  hours  of  sorrow  at  home  no  better  recep- 
tion. The  women  were  in  the  usual  Syrian  cos- 
tume ;  their  loose  gowns  gaped  open  at  the  bosom, 
and  they  were  without  veils,  and  made  no  pretense 
of  drawing  a  shawl  before  their  faces;  all  wore 
necklaces  of  coins,  and  many  of  them  had  circlets 
of  coins  on  the  head,  with  strips  depending  from 
them,  also  stiff  with  silver  pieces.  A  woman's 
worth  was  thus  easily  to  be  reckoned,  for  her  entire 


178  BETHLEHEM    AND    MAR    SABA 

fortune  was  on  her  head.  A  pretty  face  was  here 
and  there  to  be  seen,  but  most  of  them  were  flar- 
ingly  ugly,  and  —  to  liken  them  to  what  they  most 
resembled  —  physically  and  mentally  the  type  of 
the  North  American  squaws.  They  were  accom- 
panied by  all  their  children,  and  the  little  brats 
were  tumbling  about  the  tombs,  and  learning  the 
language  of  woe. 

Among  the  hundreds  of  women  present,  the  ex- 
pression of  grief  took  two  forms,  —  one  active,  the 
other  more  resigned.  A  group  seated  itself  about 
a  tomb,  and  the  members  swayed  their  bodies  to 
and  fro,  howled  at  the  top  of  their  voices,  and  pre- 
tended to  weep.  I  had  the  infidel  curiosity  to  go 
from  group  to  group  in  search  of  a  tear,  but  I  did 
not  see  one.  Occasionally  some  interruption,  like 
the  arrival  of  a  new  mourner,  would  cause  the 
swaying  and  howling  to  cease  for  a  moment,  or  it 
would  now  and  then  be  temporarily  left  to  the 
woman  at  the  head  of  the  grave,  but  presently  all 
would  fall  to  again  and  abandon  themselves  to  the 
luxury  of  agony.  It  was  perhaps  unreasonable  to 
expect  tears  from  creatures  so  withered  as  most 
of  these  were;  but  they  worked  themselves  into  a 
frenzy  of  excitement,  they  rolled  up  their  blue 
checked  cotton  handkerchiefs,  drew  them  across 
their  eyes,  and  then  wrung  them  out  with  gestures 
of  despair.  It  was  the  dryest  grief  I  ever  saw. 

The  more  active  mourners  formed  a  ring  in  a 
clear  spot.  Some  thirty  women  standing  with  their 
faces  toward  the  centre,  their  hands  on  each  other's 
shoulders,  circled  round  with  unrhythmic  steps, 


MOSLEM   MOURNERS  179 

crying  and  singing,  and  occasionally  jumping  up 
and  down  with  all  their  energy,  like  the  dancers 
of  Horace,  "striking  the  ground  with  equal  feet," 
coming  down  upon  the  earth  with  a  heavy  thud,  at 
the  same  time  slapping  their  faces  with  their  hands ; 
then  circling  around  again  with  faster  steps,  and 
shriller  cries,  and  more  prolonged  ululations,  and 
anon  pausing  to  jump  and  beat  the  ground  with  a 
violence  sufficient  to  shatter  their  frames.  The 
loose  flowing  robes,  the  clinking  of  the  silver  orna- 
ments, the  wild  gleam  of  their  eyes,  the  Bacchaiitic 
madness  of  their  saltations,  the  shrill  shrieking 
and  wailing,  conspired  to  give  their  demonstration 
an  indescribable  barbarity.  This  scene  has  re- 
curred every  Thursday  for,  I  suppose,  hundreds  of 
years,  within  a  mile  of  the  birthplace  of  Jesus. 

Bethlehem  at  a  little  distance  presents  an  ap- 
pearance that  its  interior  does  not  maintain;  but 
it  is  so  much  better  than  most  Syrian  villages  of 
its  size  (it  has  a  population  of  about  three  thou- 
sand), and  is  so  much  cleaner  than  Jerusalem,  that 
we  are  content  with  its  ancient  though  common- 
place aspect.  But  the  atmosphere  of  the  town  is 
thoroughly  commercial,  or  perhaps  I  should  say 
industrial ;  you  do  not  find  in  it  that  rural  and  re- 
poseful air  which  you  associate  with  the  birthplace 
of  our  Lord.  The  people  are  sharp,  to  a  woman, 
and  have  a  keen  eye  for  the  purse  of  the  stranger. 
Every  other  house  is  a  shop  for  the  manufacture 
or  sale  of  some  of  the  Bethlehem  specialties,  — 
carvings  in  olive-wood  and  ivory  and  mother-of- 
pearl,  crosses  and  crucifixes,  and  models  of  the 


180  BETHLEHEM   AND   MAR   SABA 

Holy  Sepulchre,  and  every  sort  of  sacred  trinket, 
and  beads  in  endless  variety;  a  little  is  done  also 
in  silver-work,  especially  in  rings.  One  may 
chance  upon  a  Mecca  ring  there ;  but  the  ring  pe- 
culiar to  Bethlehem  is  a  silver  wedding-ring;  it  is 
a  broad  and  cingular  band  of  silver  with  pendants, 
and  is  worn  upon  the  thumb.  As  soon  as  we  come 
into  the  town,  we  are  beset  with  sellers  of  various 
wares,  and  we  never  escape  them  except  when  we 
are  in  the  convent. 

The  Latin  convent  opens  its  doors  to  tourists ; 
it  is  a  hospitable  house,  and  the  monks  are  very 
civil;  they  let  us  sit  in  a  salle-a-manger,  while 
waiting  for  dinner,  that  was  as  damp  and  chill  as 
a  dungeon,  and  they  gave  us  a  well-intended  but 
uneatable  meal,  and  the  most  peculiar  wine,  all  at 
a  good  price.  The  wine,  white  and  red,  was  made 
by  the  monks,  they  said  with  some  pride ;  we  tried 
both  kinds,  and  I  can  recommend  it  to  the  Ameri- 
can Temperance  Union :  if  it  can  be  introduced  to 
the  public,  the  public  will  embrace  total  abstinence 
with  enthusiasm. 

While  we  were  waiting  for  the  proper  hour  to 
visit  the  crypt  of  the  Nativity,  we  went  out  upon 
the  esplanade  before  the  convent,  and  looked  down 
into  the  terraced  ravines  which  are  endeared  to  us 
by  so  many  associations.  Somewhere  down  there 
is  the  patch  of  ground  that  the  mighty  man  of 
wealth,  Boaz,  owned,  in  which  sweet  Ruth  went 
gleaning  in  the  barley -harvest.  What  a  picture 
of  a  primitive  time  it  is,  — -  the  noonday  meal  of 
Boaz  and  his  handmaidens,  Ruth  invited  to  join 


THE    FIELD    OF    BOAZ  181 

them,  and  dip  her  morsel  in  the  vinegar  with  the 
rest,  and  the  hospitable  Boaz  handing  her  parched 
corn.  We  can  understand  why  Ruth  had  good 
gleaning  over  this  stony  ground,  after  the  rakes  of 
the  handmaidens.  We  know  that  her  dress  did  not 
differ  from  that  worn  by  Oriental  women  now ;  for 
her  "veil,"  which  Boaz  filled  with  six  measures  of 
barley,  was  the  head-shawl  still  almost  universally 
worn,  —  though  not  by  the  Bethlehemite  women. 
Their  head-dress  is  peculiar;  there  seems  to  be  on 
top  of  the  head  a  square  frame,  and  over  this  is 
thrown  and  folded  a  piece  of  white  cloth.  The 
women  are  thus  in  a  manner  crowned,  and  the 
dress  is  as  becoming  as  the  somewhat  similar  head- 
covering  of  the  Roman  peasants.  We  learn  also 
in  the  story  of  Ruth  that  the  mother-in-law  in  her 
day  was  as  wise  in  the  ways  of  men  as  she  is  now. 
"Sit  still,  my  daughter,"  she  counseled  her  after 
she  returned  with  the  veil  full  of  barley,  "until 
thou  know  how  the  matter  will  fall,  for  the  man 
will  not  be  in  rest  until  he  have  finished  the  thing 
this  day." 

Down  there,  somewhere  in  that  wilderness  of 
ravines,  David,  the  great-grandson  of  Ruth,  kept 
his  father's  sheep  before  he  went  to  the  combat 
with  Goliath.  It  was  there  —  the  grotto  is  shown 
a  little  more  than  a  mile  from  this  convent  —  that 
the  shepherds  watched  their  flocks  by  night  when 
the  angel  appeared  and  announced  the  birth  of 
the  Messiah,  the  Son  of  David.  We  have  here 
within  the  grasp  of  the  eye  almost  the  beginning 
and  the  end  of  the  old  dispensation,  from  the  bur- 


182  BETHLEHEM    AND    MAR    SABA 

ial  of  Rachel  to  the  birth  of  our  Lord,  from  the 
passing  of  the  wandering  sheykh,  Jacob,  with  his 
family,  to  the  end  put  to  the  exclusive  pretensions 
of  his  descendants  by  the  coming  of  a  Saviour  to 
all  the  world. 

The  cave  called  the  Grotto  of  the  Nativity  has 
great  antiquity.  The  hand-book  says  it  had  this 
repute  as  early  as  the  second  century.  In  the  year 
327  the  mother  of  Constantine  built  a  church  over 
it,  and  this  basilica  still  stands,  and  is  the  oldest 
specimen  of  Christian  architecture  in  existence, 
except  perhaps  the  lower  church  of  St.  Clement 
at  Rome.  It  is  the  oldest  basilica  above  ground 
retaining  its  perfect  ancient  form.  The  main  part 
of  the  church  consists  of  a  nave  and  four  aisles, 
separated  by  four  rows  of  Corinthian  marble  col- 
umns, tradition  says,  taken  from  the  temple  of  Sol- 
omon. The  walls  were  once  adorned  with  mosaics, 
but  only  fragments  of  them  remain ;  the  roof  is 
decayed  and  leaky,  the  pavement  is  broken.  This 
part  of  the  church  is  wholly  neglected,  because  it 
belongs  to  the  several  sects  in  common,  and  is 
merely  the  arena  for  an  occasional  fight.  The 
choir  is  separated  from  the  nave  by  a  wall,  and  is 
divided  into  two  chapels,  one  of  the  Greeks,  the 
other  of  the  Armenians.  The  Grotto  of  the  Nativ- 
ity is  underneath  these  chapels,  and  each  sect  has 
a  separate  staircase  of  descent  to  it.  The  Latin 
chapel  is  on  the  north  side  of  this  choir,  and  it 
also  has  a  stairway  to  the  subterranean  apartments. 

Making  an  effort  to  believe  that  the  stable  of 
the  inn  in  which  Christ  was  born  was  a  small  sub- 


THE  GROTTO  OF  THE  NATIVITY      183 

terraneaii  cave  cut  in  the  solid  rock,  we  descended 
a  winding  flight  of  stairs  from  the  Latin  chapel, 
with  a  monk  for  our  guide,  and  entered  a  labyrinth 
from  which  we  did  not  emerge  until  we  reached  the 
place  of  the  nativity,  and  ascended  into  the  Greek 
chapel  above  it.  We  walked  between  glistening 
walls  of  rock,  illuminated  by  oil-lamps  here  and 
there,  and  in  our  exploration  of  the  gloomy  pas- 
sages and  chambers,  encountered  shrines,  pictures, 
and  tombs  of  the  sainted.  We  saw,  or  were  told 
that  we  saw,  the  spot  to  which  St.  Joseph  retired 
at  the  moment  of  the  nativity,  and  also  the  place 
where  the  twenty  thousand  children  who  were 
murdered  by  the  order  of  Herod  —  a  ghastly  sub- 
ject so  well  improved  by  the  painters  of  the  Re- 
naissance —  are  buried.  But  there  was  one  cham- 
ber, or  rather  vault,  that  we  entered  with  genuine 
emotion.  This  was  the  cell  of  Jerome,  hermit 
and  scholar,  whose  writings  have  gained  him  the 
title  of  Father  of  the  Church. 

At  the  close  of  the  fourth  century  Bethlehem 
was  chiefly  famous  as  the  retreat  of  this  holy  stu- 
dent, and  the  fame  of  his  learning  and  sanctity 
drew  to  it  from  distant  lands  many  faithful 
women,  who  renounced  the  world  and  its  plea- 
sures, and  were  content  to  sit  at  his  feet  and  learn 
the  way  of  life.  Among  those  who  resigned,  and, 
for  his  sake  and  the  cross,  despised,  the  allure- 
ments and  honors  of  the  Roman  world,  was  the 
devout  Paula,  a  Roman  matron  who  traced  her 
origin  from  Agamemnon,  and  numbered  the  Sci- 
pios  and  Gracchi  among  her  ancestors,  while  her 


184  BETHLEHEM    AND   MAR    SABA 

husband,  Joxotius,  deduced  a  no  less  royal  lineage 
from  ^Eneas.  Her  wealth  was  sufficient  to  sup- 
port the  dignity  of  such  a  descent ;  among  her  pos- 
sessions, an  item  in  her  rent-roll,  was  the  city  of 
Nicopolis,  which  Augustus  built  as  a  monument 
of  the  victory  of  Actium.  By  the  advice  and  in 
the  company  of  Jerome,  her  spiritual  guide,  she 
abandoned  Rome  and  all  her  vast  estates,  and  even 
her  infant  son,  and  retired  to  the  holy  village  of 
Bethlehem.  The  great  Jerome,  who  wrote  her  bi- 
ography, and  transmitted  the  story  of  her  virtues 
to  the  most  distant  ages,  bestowed  upon  her  the 
singular  title  of  the  Mother-in-law  of  God!  She 
was  buried  here,  and  we  look  upon  her  tomb  with 
scarcely  less  interest  than  that  of  Jerome  himself, 
who  also  rests  in  this  thrice  holy  ground.  At  the 
beginning  of  the  fifth  century,  when  the  Goths 
sacked  Rome,  a  crowd  of  the  noble  and  the  rich, 
escaping  with  nothing  saved  from  the  wreck  but 
life  and  honor,  attracted  also  by  the  reputation  of 
Jerome,  appeared  as  beggars  in  the  streets  of  this 
humble  village.  No  doubt  they  thronged  to  the 
cell  of  the  venerable  father. 

There  is,  I  suppose,  no  doubt  that  this  is  the 
study  in  which  he  composed  many  of  his  more  im- 
portant treatises.  It  is  a  vaulted  chamber,  about 
twenty  feet  square  by  nine  feet  high.  There  is  in 
Venice  a  picture  of  the  study  of  Jerome,  painted 
by  Carpaccio,  which  represents  a  delightful  apart- 
ment; the  saint  is  seen  in  his  study,  in  a  rich  ne- 
glige robe;  at  the  side  of  his  desk  are  musical  in- 
struments, music-stands,  and  sheets  of  music,  as  if 


THE   PLACE   OF   PLACES  185 

he  were  accustomed  to  give  soirees  ;  on  the  chim- 
ney-piece are  Greek  vases  and  other  objects  of 
virtu,  and  in  the  middle  of  the  room  is  a  poodle- 
dog  of  the  most  worldly  and  useless  of  the  canine 
breed.  The  artist  should  have  seen  the  real  study 
of  the  hermit,  —  a  grim,  unornamented  vault,  in 
which  he  passed  his  days  in  mortifications  of  the 
body,  hearing  always  ringing  in  his  ears,  in  his 
disordered  mental  and  physical  condition,  the  last 
trump  of  judgment. 

We  passed,  groping  our  way  along  in  this  reli- 
gious cellar,  through  a  winding,  narrow  passage  in 
the  rock,  some  twenty -five  feet  long,  and  came  into 
the  place  of  places,  the  very  Chapel  of  the  Na- 
tivity. In  this  low  vault,  thirty-eight  feet  long 
and  eleven  feet  wide,  hewn  in  the  rock,  is  an  altar 
at  one  end.  Before  this  altar  —  and  we  can  see 
everything  with  distinctness,  for  sixteen  silver 
lamps  are  burning  about  it  —  there  is  a  marble 
slab  in  the  pavement  into  which  is  let  a  silver  star, 
with  this  sentence  round  it :  Hie  de  Viryine  Maria 
Jesus  Christus  natus  est.  The  guardian  of  this 
sacred  spot  was  a  Turkish  soldier,  who  stood  there 
with  his  gun  and  fixed  bayonet,  an  attitude  which 
experience  has  taught  him  is  necessary  to  keep  the 
peace  among  the  Christians  who  meet  here.  The 
altar  is  without  furniture,  and  is  draped  by  each 
sect  which  uses  it  in  turn.  Near  by  is  the  chapel 
of  the  "manger,"  but  the  manger  in  which  Christ 
was  laid  is  in  the  church  of  Santa  Maria  Maggiore 
in  Rome. 

There    is   in    Bethlehem   another   ancient    cave 


186  BETHLEHEM    AND   MAR    SABA 

which  is  almost  as  famous  as  that  of  the  Nativity ; 
it  is  called  the  Milk  Grotto,  and  during  all  ages  of 
the  Church  a  most  marvelous  virtue  has  attached 
to  it;  fragments  of  the  stone  have  been,  and  still 
continue  to  be,  broken  off  and  sent  into  all  Chris- 
tian countries ;  women  also  make  pilgrimages  to  it 
in  faith.  The  grotto  is  on  the  edge  of  the  town 
overlooking  the  eastern  ravines,  and  is  arranged 
as  a  show-place.  In  our  walk  thither  a  stately 
Bedawee,  as  by  accident,  fell  into  our  company, 
and  acted  as  our  cicerone.  He  was  desirous  that 
we  should  know  that  he  also  was  a  man  of  the 
world  and  of  travel,  and  rated  at  its  proper  value 
this  little  corner  of  the  earth.  He  had  served  in 
the  French  army  and  taken  part  in  many  battles, 
and  had  been  in  Paris  and  seen  the  tomb  of  the 
great  emperor,  —  ah,  there  was  a  man!  As  to  this 
grotto,  they  say  that  the  Virgin  used  to  send  to  it 
for  milk,  —  many  think  so.  As  for  him,  he  was  a 
soldier,  and  did  not  much  give  his  mind  to  such 
things. 

This  grotto  is  an  excavation  in  the  chalky  rock, 
and  might  be  a  very  good  place  to  store  milk,  but 
for  the  popular  prejudice  in  cities  against  chalk 
and  water.  We  entered  it  through  the  court  of  a 
private  house,  and  the  damsel  who  admitted  us  also 
assured  us  that  the  Virgin  procured  milk  from  it. 
The  tradition  is  that  the  Virgin  and  Child  were 
concealed  here  for  a  time  before  the  flight  into 
Egypt;  and  ever  since  then  its  stone  has  the  mi- 
raculous power  of  increasing  the  flow  of  the  mater- 
nal breast.  The  early  fathers  encouraged  this  and 


THE    WELL    OF    BETHLEHEM  187 

the  like  superstitions  in  the  docile  minds  of  their 
fair  converts,  and  themselves  testified  to  the  efficacy 
of  this  remarkable  stone.  These  superstitions  be- 
long rather  to  the  Orient  than  to  any  form  of  reli- 
gion. There  is  a  famous  spring  at  Assiout  in 
Egypt  which  was  for  centuries  much  resorted  to  by 
ladies  who  desired  offspring;  and  the  Arabs  on  the 
Upper  Nile  to-day,  who  wish  for  an  heir  male,  re- 
sort to  a  plant  which  grows  in  the  remote  desert, 
rare  and  difficult  to  find,  the  leaves  of  which  are 
"good  for  boys."  This  grotto  scarcely  repays  the 
visit,  except  for  the  view  one  obtains  of  the  wild 
country  below  it.  When  we  bade  good-by  to  the 
courtly  Arab,  we  had  too  much  delicacy  to  offer 
money  to  such  a  gentleman  and  a  soldier  of  the 
empire;  a  delicacy  not  shared  by  him,  however, 
for  he  let  no  false  modesty  hinder  a  reediest  for  a 
little  backsheesh  for  tobacco. 

On  our  return,  and  at  some  distance  from  the 
gate,  we  diverged  into  a  lane,  and  sought,  in  a 
rocky  field,  the  traditional  well  whose  waters  David 
longed  for  when  he  was  in  the  Cave  of  Adullam, 
—  "  O  that  one  would  give  me  drink  of  the  water 
of  the  well  of  Bethlehem,  which  is  by  the  gate! " 
Howbeit,  when  the  three  mighty  men  had  broken 
through  the  Philistine  guards  and  procured  him 
the  water,  David  would  not  drink  that  which  was 
brought  at  such  a  sacrifice.  Two  very  comely 
Bethlehem  girls  hastened  at  our  approach  to  draw 
water  from  the  well  and  gave  us  to  drink,  with  all 
the  freedom  of  Oriental  hospitality,  in  which  there 
is  always  an  expectation  of  backsheesh.  The 


188  BETHLEHEM    AND   MAR    SABA 

water  is  at  any  rate  very  good,  and  there  is  no 
reason  why  these  pretty  girls  should  not  turn  an 
honest  penny  upon  the  strength  of  David's  thirst, 
whether  this  be  the  well  whose  water  he  desired  or 
not.  We  were  only  too  thankful  that  no  miracu- 
lous property  is  attributed  to  its  waters.  As  we 
returned,  we  had  the  evening  light  upon  the  gray 
walls  and  towers  of  the  city,  and  were  able  to  in- 
vest it  with  something  of  its  historical  dignity. 

The  next  excursion  that  we  made  from  Jerusa- 
lem was  so  different  from  the  one  to  Bethlehem, 
that  by  way  of  contrast  I  put  them  together.  It 
was  to  the  convent  of  Mar  Saba,  which  lies  in  the 
wilderness  towards  the  Dead  Sea,  about  two  hours 
and  a  half  from  the  city. 

In  those  good  old  days,  when  piety  was  mea- 
sured by  frugality  in  the  use  of  the  bath,  when 
the  holy  fathers  praised  most  those  hermits  who 
washed  least,  when  it  might  perhaps  be  the  boast 
of  more  than  one  virgin,  devoted  to  the  ascetic 
life,  that  she  had  lived  fifty-eight  years  during 
which  water  had  touched  neither  her  hands,  her 
face,  her  feet,  nor  any  part  of  her  body,  Palestine 
was,  after  Egypt,  the  favorite  resort  of  the  fanat- 
ical, the  unfortunate,  and  the  lazy,  who,  gathered 
into  communities  or  dwelling  in  solitary  caves, 
offered  to  the  barbarian  world  a  spectacle  of  super- 
stition and  abasement  under  the  name  of  Christian- 
ity. But  of  the  swarm  of  hermits  and  monks  who 
begged  in  the  cities  and  burrowed  in  the  caves  of 
the  Holy  Land  in  the  fifth  centiiry,  no  one  may 
perhaps  be  spoken  of  with  more  respect  than  St. 


THE   CONVENT    OF   MAR    SABA  189 

Sabas,  who,  besides  a  reputation  for  sanctity,  has 
left  that  of  manliness  and  a  virile  ability,  which 
his  self-mortifications  did  not  extirpate..  And  of 
all  the  monasteries  of  that  period,  that  of  Mar 
Saba  is  the  only  one  in  Judaea  which  has  preserved 
almost  unbroken  the  type  of  that  time.  St.  Sabas 
was  a  Cappadocian  who  came  to  Palestine  in  search 
of  a  permanent  retreat,  savage  enough  to  satisfy 
his  austere  soul.  He  found  it  in  a  cave  in  one  of 
the  wildest  gorges  in  this  most  desolate  of  lands,  a 
ravine  which  opens  into  the  mountains  from  the 
brook  Kidron.  The  fame  of  his  zeal  and  piety  at- 
tracted thousands  to  his  neighborhood,  so  that  at 
one  time  there  were  almost  as  many  hermits  roost- 
ing about  in  the  rocks  near  him  as  there  are  inhab- 
itants in  the  city  of  Jerusalem  now.  He  was  once 
enabled  to  lead  an  army  of  monks  to  that  city  and 
chastise  the  Monophysite  heretics.  His  cave  in 
the  steep  side  of  a  rocky  precipice  became  the  nu- 
cleus of  his  convent,  which  grew  around  it  and  at- 
tached itself  to  the  face  of  the  rock  as  best  it  could. 
For  the  convent  of  Mar  Saba  is  not  a  building, 
nor  a  collection  of  buildings,  so  much  as  it  is  a 
group  of  nests  attached  to  the  side  of  a  precipice. 

It  was  a  bright  Saturday  afternoon  that  a  young- 
divinity  student  and  I,  taking  the  volatile  Deme- 
trius with  us  for  interpreter,  rode  out  of  St.  Ste- 
phen's gate,  into  Jehoshaphat,  past  the  gray  field 
of  Jewish  graves,  down  through  Tophet  and  the 
wild  ravine  of  the  Kidron. 

It  is  unpleasant  to  interrupt  the  prosperous  start 
of  a  pilgrimage  by  a  trifling  incident,  but  at  our 


190  BETHLEHEM    AND    MAR    SABA 

first  descent  and  the  slightest  tension  on  the  bridle- 
reins  of  my  horse,  they  parted  from  the  bit.  This 
accident,  which  might  be  serious  in  other  lands,  is 
of  the  sort  that  is  anticipated  here,  and  I  may  say 
assured,  by  the  forethought  of  the  owners  of  sad- 
dle-horses. Upon  dismounting  with  as  much  haste 
as  dignity,  I  discovered  that  the  reins  had  been 
fastened  to  the  bit  by  a  single  rotten  string  of  cot- 
ton. Luckily  the  horse  I  rode  was  not  an  animal 
to  take  advantage  of  the  weakness  of  his  toggery. 
He  was  a  Syrian  horse,  a  light  sorrel,  and  had  no 
one  of  the  good  points  of  a  horse  except  the  name 
and  general  shape.  His  walk  was  slow  and  re- 
luctant, his  trot  a  high  and  non-progressive  jolt, 
his  gallop  a  large  up-and-down  agitation.  To  his 
bridle  of  strings  and  shreds  no  martingale  was  at- 
tached; no  horse  in  Syria  is  subject  to  that  re- 
straint. When  I  pull  the  bit  he  sticks  up  his  nose ; 
when  I  switch  him  he  kicks.  When  I  hold  him 
in,  he  won't  go;  when  I  let  him  loose,  he  goes  on 
his  nose.  I  dismount  and  look  at  him  with  curi- 
osity; I  wonder  all  the  journey  what  his  forte  is, 
but  I  never  discover.  I  conclude  that  he  is  like 
the  emperor  Honorius,  whom  Gibbon  stigmatizes 
as  "without  passions,  and  consequently  without 
talents." 

Yet  he  was  not  so  bad  as  the  roads,  and  perhaps 
no  horse  would  do  much  better  on  these  stony  and 
broken  foot-paths.  This  horse  is  not  a  model  (for 
anything  but  a  clothes-horse),  but  from  my  obser- 
vation I  think  that  great  injustice  has  been  done 
to  Syrian  horses  by  travelers,  who  have  only  them- 


SYRIAN   HORSES  191 

selves  to  blame  for  accidents  which  bring  the  horses 
into  disrepute.  Travelers  are  thrown  from  these 
steeds ;  it  is  a  daily  occurrence ;  we  heard  contin- 
ually that  somebody  had  a  fall  from  his  horse 
on  his  way  to  the  Jordan,  or  to  Mar  Saba,  or  to 
Nablous,  and  was  laid  up,  and  it  was  always  in 
consequence  of  a  vicious  brute.  The  fact  is  that 
excellent  ministers  of  the  gospel  and  doctors  of 
divinity  and  students  of  the  same,  who  have  never 
in  their  lives  been  on  the  back  of  a  horse  in  any 
other  land,  seem  to  think  when  they  come  here  that 
the  holy  air  of  Palestine  will  transform  them  into 
accomplished  horsemen ;  or  perhaps  they  are  emu- 
lous of  Elisha,  that  they  may  go  to  heaven  by 
means  of  a  fiery  steed. 

For  a  while  we  had  the  company  of  the  singing 
brook  Kidron,  flowing  clear  over  the  stones;  then 
we  left  the  ravine  and  wound  over  rocky  steeps, 
which  afforded  us  fine  views  of  broken  hills  and 
interlacing  ridges,  and  when  we  again  reached  the 
valley  the  brook  had  disappeared  in  the  thirsty 
ground.  The  road  is  strewn,  not  paved,  with 
stones,  and  in  many  places  hardly  practicable  for 
horses.  Occasionally  we  encountered  flocks  of 
goats  and  of  long  -  wooled  sheep  feeding  on  the 
scant  grass  of  the  hills,  and  tended  by  boys  in  the 
coarse  brown  and  striped  garments  of  the  country, 
which  give  a  state-prison  aspect  to  most  of  the  in- 
habitants, —  but  there  was  no  other  life,  and  no 
trees  offer  relief  to  the  hard  landscape.  But  the 
way  was  now  and  then  bright  with  flowers,  thickly 
carpeted  with  scarlet  anemones,  the  Star  of  Beth- 


192  BETHLEHEM    AND   MAR    SABA 

lehem,  and  tiny  dandelions.  Two  hours  from  the 
city  we  passed  several  camps  of  Bedaween,  their 
brown  low  camel's-hair  tents  pitched  among  the 
rocks  and  scarcely  distinguishable  in  the  sombre 
landscape.  About  the  tents  were  grouped  camels 
and  donkeys,  and  from  them  issued  and  pursued 
us  begging  boys  and  girls.  A  lazy  Bedawee  ap- 
peared here  and  there  with  a  long  gun,  and  we 
could  imagine  that  this  gloomy  region  might  be 
unsafe  after  nightfall;  but  no  danger  ever  seems 
possible  in  such  bright  sunshine  and  under  a  sky 
so  blue  and  friendly. 

When  a  half  hour  from  the  convent,  we  turned 
to  the  right  from  the  road  to  the  Dead  Sea,  and 
ascending  a  steep  hill  found  ourselves  riding  along 
the  edge  of  a  deep  winding  gorge;  a  brook  flows 
at  the  bottom,  and  its  sides  are  sheer  precipices  of 
rock,  generally  parallel,  but  occasionally  widening 
into  amphitheatres  of  the  most  fantastic  rocky 
formation.  It  is  on  one  side  of  this  narrow  ravine 
that  the  convent  is  built,  partly  excavated  in  the 
rock,  partly  resting  on  jutting  ledges,  and  partly 
hung  out  in  the  form  of  balconies,  —  buildings 
clinging  to  the  steep  side  like  a  comb  of  wild  bees 
or  wasps  to  a  rock. 

Our  first  note  of  approach  to  it  was  the  sight  of 
a  square  tower  and  of  the  roofs  of  buildings  below 
us.  Descending  from  the  road  by  several  short 
turns,  and  finally  by  two  steep  paved  inclines,  we 
came  .to  a  lofty  wall  in  which  is  a  small  iron  door. 
As  we  could  go  no  farther  without  aid  from  within, 
Demetrius  shouted,  and  soon  we  had  a  response 


INHOSPITABLE   MONKS  193 

from  a  slit  in  the  wall  fifty  feet  above  us  to  the 
left.  We  could  see  no  one,  but  the  voice  de- 
manded who  we  were,  and  whether  we  had  a  pass. 
Above  the  slit  from  which  the  angelic  voice  pro- 
ceeded a  stone  projected,  and  in  this  was  an  open- 
ing for  letting  down  or  drawing  up  articles.  This 
habit  of  caution  in  regard  to  who  or  what  shall 
come  into  the  convent  is  of  course  a  relic  of  the 
gone  ages  of  tumult,  but  it  is  still  necessaiy  as  a 
safeguard  against  the  wandering  Bedaween,  who 
would  no  doubt  find  means  to  plunder  the  convent 
of  its  great  wealth  of  gold,  silver,  and  jewels  if 
they  were  not  at  all  times  rigorously  excluded. 
The  convent  with  its  walls  and  towers  is  still  a  for- 
tress strong  enough  to  resist  any  irregular  attempts 
of  the  wandering  tribes.  It  is  also  necessary  to 
strictly  guard  the  convent  against  women,  who  in 
these  days  of  speculation,  if  not  scientific  curiosity, 
often  knock  impatiently  and  angrily  at  its  gates, 
and  who,  if  admitted,  would  in  one  gay  and  chatty 
hour  destroy  the  spell  of  holy  seclusion  which  has 
been  imbroken  for  one  thousand  three  hundred  and 
ninety-two  years.  I  know  that  sometimes  it  seems 
an  unjust  ordination  of  Providence  that  a  woman 
cannot  be  a  man,  but  I  cannot  join  those  who  up- 
braid the  monks  of  Mar  Saba  for  inhospitality  be- 
cause they  refuse  to  admit  women  under  any  cir- 
cumstances into  the  precincts  of  the  convent ;  if  I 
do  not  sympathize  with  the  brothers,  I  can  under- 
stand their  adhesion  to  the  last  shred  of  man's 
independence,  which  is  only  to  be  maintained  by 
absolute  exclusion  of  the  other  sex.  It  is  not  neces- 


194  BETHLEHEM    AND    MAE    SABA 

sary  to  revive  the  defamation  of  the  early  Christian 
ages,  that  the  devil  appeared  oftener  to  the  hermit 
in  the  form  of  a  beautiful  woman  than  in  any 
other ;  but  we  may  not  regret  that  there  is  still  one 
spot  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  if  it  is  no  bigger  than 
the  sod  upon  which  Noah's  pioneer  dove  alighted, 
in  which  weak  men  may  be  safe  from  the  tempta- 
tion, the  criticism,  and  the  curiosity  of  the  superior 
being.  There  is  an  airy  tower  on  the  rocks  out- 
side the  walls  which  women  may  occupy  if  they 
cannot  restrain  their  desire  to  lodge  in  this  neigh- 
borhood, or  if  night  overtakes  them  here  on  their 
way  from  the  Dead  Sea;  there  Madame  Pfeiffer, 
Miss  Martineau,  and  other  famous  travelers  of 
their  sex  have  found  refuge,  and  I  am  sorry  to  say 
abused  their  proximity  to  this  retreat  of  shuddering 
man  by  estimating  the  piety  of  its  inmates  accord- 
ing to  their  hospitality  to  women.  So  far  as  I  can 
learn,  this  convent  of  Mar  Saba  is  now  the  only 
retreat  left  on  this  broad  earth  for  MAN  ;  and  it 
seems  to  me  only  reasonable  that  it  should  be  re- 
spected by  his  generous  and  gentle,  though  inquis- 
itive foe. 

After  further  parley  with  Demetrius  and  a  con- 
siderable interval,  we  heard  a  bell  ring,  and  in  a 
few  moments  the  iron  door  opened,  and  we  en- 
tered, stepping  our  horses  carefully  over  the  stone 
threshold,  and  showing  our  pass  from  the  Jerusa- 
lem Patriarch  to  an  attendant,  and  came  into  a 
sort  of  stable  hewn  in  the  rock.  Here  we  aban- 
doned our  horses,  and  were  taken  in  charge  by  a 
monk  whom  the  bell  had  summoned  from  below. 


FASTING    IN    MAR   SABA  195 

He  conducted  us  down  several  long  flights  of  zig- 
zag stairs  in  the  rock,  amid  hanging  buildings  and 
cells,  until  we  came  to  what  appears  to  be  a  broad 
ledge  in  the  precipice,  and  found  ourselves  in  the 
central  part  of  this  singular  hive,  that  is,  in  a 
small  court,  with  cells  and  rocks  on  one  side  and 
the  convent  church,  which  overhangs  the  precipice, 
on  the  other.  Beside  the  church  and  also  at  an- 
other side  of  the  court  are  buildings  in  which  pil- 
grims are  lodged,  and  in  the  centre  of  the  court  is 
the  tomb  of  St.  Sabas  himself.  Here  our  passports 
were  examined,  and  we  were  assigned  a  cheerful 
and  airy  room  looking  upon  the  court  and  tomb. 

One  of  the  brothers  soon  brought  us  coffee,  and 
the  promptness  of  this  hospitality  augured  well  for 
the  remainder  of  our  fare ;  relying  upon  the  repu- 
tation of  the  convent  for  good  cheer,  we  had 
brought  nothing  with  us,  not  so  much  as  a  biscuit. 
Judge  of  our  disgust,  then,  at  hearing  the  follow- 
ing dialogue  between  Demetrius  and  the  Greek 
monk. 

"What  time  can  the  gentlemen  dine?  " 

"Any  time  they  like." 

"What  have  you  for  dinner?" 

"Nothing." 

"You  can  give  us  no  dinner?  " 

" To  be  sure  not.      It  is  fast." 

"But  we  haven't  a  morsel,  we  shall  starve." 

"Perhaps  I  can  find  a  little  bread." 

"Nothing  else?" 

"We  have  very  good  raisins." 

"Well,"  we  interposed,  "kill  us  a  chicken,  give 


196  BETHLEHEM    AND   MAR    SABA 

us  a  few  oysters,  stewed  or  broiled,  we  are  not 
particular."  This  levity,  which  was  born  of  des- 
peration, for  the  jolting  ride  from  Jerusalem  had 
indisposed  us  to  keep  a  fast,  especially  a  fast  estab- 
lished by  a  church  the  orthodoxy  of  whose  creed 
we  had  strong  reasons  to  doubt,  did  not  affect  the 
monk.  He  replied,  "Chicken!  it  is  impossible." 
We  shrunk  our  requisition  to  eggs. 

"If  I  can  find  an  egg,  I  will  see."  And  the 
brother  departed,  with  carte  blanche  from  us  to 
squeeze  his  entire  establishment. 

Alas,  fasting  is  not  in  Mar  Saba  what  it  is  in 
New  England,  where  an  appointed  fast-day  is 
hailed  as  an  opportunity  to  forego  lunch  in  order 
to  have  an  extraordinary  appetite  for  a  better  din- 
ner than  usual ! 

The  tomb  of  St.  Sabas,  the  central  worship  of 
this  hive,  is  a  little  plastered  hut  in  the  middle  of 
the  court;  the  interior  is  decorated  with  pictures 
in  the  Byzantine  style,  and  a  lamp  is  always  burn- 
ing there.  As  we  stood  at  the  tomb  we  heard 
voices  chanting,  and,  turning  towards  the  rock,  we 
saw  a  door  from  which  the  sound  came.  Pushing 
it  open,  we  were  admitted  into  a  large  chapel,  ex- 
cavated in  the  rock.  The  service  of  vespers  was 
in  progress,  and  a  band  of  Russian  pilgrims  were 
chanting  in  rich  bass  voices,  producing  more  mel- 
ody than  I  had  ever  heard  in  a  Greek  church. 
The  excavation  extends  some  distance  into  the  hill ; 
we  were  shown  the  cells  of  St.  John  of  Damascus 
and  other  hermits,  and  at  the  end  a  charnel-house 
piled  full  of  the  bones  of  men.  In  the  dim  light 


ST.   JOHN   OF   DAMASCUS  197 

their  skulls  grinned  at  us  in  a  horrid  familiarity; 
in  that  ghastly  jocularity  which  a  skull  always  puts 
on,  with  a  kind  of  mocking  commentary  upon  the 
strong  chant  of  the  pilgrims,  which  reverberated  in 
all  the  recesses  of  the  gloomy  cave,  —  fresh,  hearty 
voices,  such  as  these  skulls  have  heard  (if  they  can 
hear)  for  many  centuries.  The  pilgrims  come,  and 
chant,  and  depart,  generation  after  generation ;  the 
bones  and  skulls  of  the  fourteen  thousand  mar- 
tyrs in  this  charnel-bin  enjoy  a  sort  of  repulsive 
immortality.  The  monk,  who  was  our  guide,  ap- 
peared to  care  no  more  for  the  remains  of  the  mar- 
tyrs than  for  the  presence  of  the  pilgrims.  In  vis- 
iting such  storehouses  one  cannot  but  be  struck  by 
the  light  familiarity  with  the  relics  and  insignia  of 
death  which  the  monks  have  acquired. 

This  St.  John  of  Damascus,  whose  remains  re- 
pose here,  was  a  fiery  character  in  his  day,  and 
favored  by  a  special  miracle  before  he  became  a 
saint.  He  so  distinguished  himself  by  his  invec- 
tives against  Leo  and  Constantine  and  other  icono- 
clast emperors  at  Constantinople  who,  in  the  eighth 
century,  attempted  to  extirpate  image  -  worship 
from  the  Catholic  Church,  that  he  was  sentenced 
to  lose  his  right  hand.  The  story  is  that  it  was 
instantly  restored  by  the  Virgin  Mary.  It  is 
worthy  of  note  that  the  superstitious  Orient  more 
readily  gave  up  idolatry  or  image-worship  under 
the  Moslems  than  under  the  Christians. 

As  the  sun  was  setting  we  left  the  pilgrims 
chanting  to  the  martyrs,  and  hastened  to  explore 
the  premises  a  little,  before  the  light  should  fade. 


198  BETHLEHEM    AND   MAR    SABA 

We  followed  our  guide  up  stairs  and  down  stairs, 
sometimes  cut  in  the  stone,  sometimes  wooden 
stairways,  along  hanging  galleries,  through  corri- 
dors hewn  in  the  rock,  amid  cells  and  little  chap- 
els, —  a  most  intricate  labyrinth,  in  which  the 
uninitiated  would  soon  lose  his  way.  Here  and 
there  we  came  suddenly  upon  a  little  garden  spot 
as  big  as  a  bed-blanket,  a  ledge  upon  which  soil 
had  been  deposited.  We  walked  also  under  grape- 
trellises,  we  saw  orange-trees,  and  the  single  palm- 
tree  that  the  convent  boasts,  said  to  have  been 
planted  by  St.  Sabas  himself.  The  plan  of  this 
establishment  gradually  developed  itself  to  us.  It 
differs  from  an  ordinary  convent  chiefly  in  this,  — 
the  latter  is  spread  out  flat  on  the  earth,  Mar 
Saba  is  set  up  edgewise.  Put  Mar  Saba  on  a 
plain,  and  these  little  garden  spots  and  graperies 
would  be  courts  and  squares  amid  buildings,  these 
galleries  would  be  bridges,  these  cells  or  horizon- 
tal caves  would  be  perpendicular  tombs  and  reser- 
voirs. 

When  we  arrived,  we  supposed  that  we  were 
almost  the  only  guests.  But  we  found  that  the 
place  was  full  of  Greek  and  Russian  pilgrims ;  we 
encountered  them  on  the  terraces,  on  the  flat  roofs, 
in  the  caves,  and  in  all  out-of-the-way  nooks.  Yet 
these  were  not  the  most  pleasing  nor  the  most  ani- 
mated tenants  of  the  place ;  wherever  we  went  the 
old  rookery  was  made  cheerful  by  the  twittering 
notes  of  black  birds  with  yellow  wings,  a  species  of 
grakle,  which  the  monks  have  domesticated,  and 
which  breed  in  great  numbers.  Steeled  as  these 


AN   ORIENTAL    DINNER  199 

good  brothers  are  against  the  other  sex,  we  were 
glad  to  discover  this  streak  of  softness  in  their  na- 
ture. High  up  on  the  precipice  there  is  a  bell- 
tower  attached  to  a  little  chapel,  and  in  it  hang 
twenty  small  bells,  which  are  rung  to  call  the  in- 
mates to  prayer.  Even  at  this  height,  and  indeed 
wherever  we  penetrated,  we  were  followed  by  the 
monotonous  chant  which  issued  from  the  charnel- 
house. 

We  passed  by  a  long  row  of  cells  occupied  by 
the  monks,  but  were  not  permitted  to  look  into 
them;  nor  were  we  allowed  to  see  the  library, 
which  is  said  to  be  rich  in  illuminated  manuscripts. 
The  convent  belongs  to  the  Greek  Church;  its 
monks  take  the  usual  vows  of  poverty,  chastity, 
and  obedience,  and  fortify  themselves  in  their  holi- 
ness by  opposing  walls  of  adamant  to  all  woman- 
kind. There  are  about  fifty  monks  here  at  present, 
and  uncommonly  fine-looking  fellows,  —  not  at  all 
the  gross  and  greasy  sort  of  monk  that  is  sometimes 
met.  Their  outward  dress  is  very  neat,  consisting 
of  a  simple  black  gown  and  a  round,  high,  flat- 
topped  black  cap. 

Our  dinner,  when  it  was  brought  into  our  apart- 
ment, answered  very  well  one's  idea  of  a  dessert, 
but  it  was  a  very  good  Oriental  dinner.  The  chief 
articles  were  a  piece  of  hard  black  bread,  and  two 
boiled  eggs,  cold,  and  probably  brought  by  some 
pilgrim  from  Jerusalem;  but  besides,  there  were 
raisins,  cheese,  figs,  oranges,  a  bottle  of  golden 
wine,  and  tea.  The  wine  was  worthy  to  be  cele- 
brated in  classic  verse ;  none  so  good  is,  I  am  sure, 


200  BETHLEHEM   AND   MAR    SABA 

made  elsewhere  in  Syria;  it  was  liquid  sunshine; 
and  as  it  was  manufactured  by  the  monks,  it  gave 
us  a  new  respect  for  their  fastidious  taste. 

The  vaulted  chamber  which  we  occupied  was 
furnished  on  three  sides  with  a  low  divan,  which 
answered  the  double  purpose  of  chairs  and  couch. 
On  one  side,  however,  and  elevated  in  the  wall, 
was  a  long  niche,  exactly  like  the  recessed  tombs 
in  cathedrals,  upon  which,  toes  turned  up,  lie  the 
bronze  or  wooden  figures  of  the  occupants.  This 
was  the  bed  of  honor.  It  was  furnished  with  a 
mattress  and  a  thick  counterpane  having  one  sheet 
sewed  to  it.  With  reluctance  I  accepted  the  dis- 
tinction of  climbing  into  it,  and  there  I  slept,  laid 
out,  for  all  the  world,  like  my  own  effigy.  From 
the  ceiling  hung  a  dim  oil-lamp,  which  cast  a 
gloom  rather  than  a  light  upon  our  sepulchral  place 
of  repose.  Our  windows  looked  out  towards  the 
west,  upon  the  court,  upon  the  stairs,  upon  the  ter- 
races, roofs,  holes,  caves,  grottos,  wooden  balco- 
nies, bird-cages,  steps  entering  the  rock  and  leading 
to  cells ;  and,  towards  the  south,  along  the  jagged 
precipice.  The  convent  occupies  the  precipice 
from  the  top  nearly  to  the  bottom  of  the  ravine ; 
the  precipice  opposite  is  nearly  perpendicular, 
close  at  hand,  and  permits  no  view  in  that  direc- 
tion. Heaven  is  the  only  object  in  sight  from  this 
retreat. 

Before  the  twilight  fell  the  chanting  was  still 
going  on  in  the  cavern,  monks  and  pilgrims  were 
gliding  about  the  court,  and  numbers  of  the  latter 
were  clustered  in  the  vestibule  of  the  church,  m 


NIGHT   IN   THE   CONVENT  201 

which  they  were  settling  down  to  lodge  for  the 
night ;  and  high  above  us  I  saw  three  gaudily  at- 
tired Bedaween,  who  had  accompanied  some  travel- 
ers from  the  Dead  Sea,  leaning  over  the  balustrade 
of  the  stairs,  and  regarding  the  scene  with  Moslem 
complacency.  The  hive  settled  slowly  to  rest. 

But  the  place  was  by  no  means  still  at  night. 
There  was  in  the  court  an  old  pilgrim  who  had 
brought  a  cough  from  the  heart  of  Russia,  who 
seemed  to  be  trying  to  cough  himself  inside  out. 
There  were  other  noises  that  could  not  be  ex- 
plained. There  was  a  good  deal  of  clattering 
about  in  wooden  shoes.  Every  sound  was  multi- 
plied and  reduplicated  from  the  echoing  rocks. 
The  strangeness  of  the  situation  did  not  conduce 
to  sleep,  not  even  to  an  effigy-like  repose;  but 
after  looking  from  the  window  upon  the  march  of 
the  quiet  stars,  after  watching  the  new  moon  dis- 
appear between  the  roofs,  and  after  seeing  that 
the  door  of  St.  Sabas's  tomb  was  closed,  although 
his  light  was  still  burning,  I  turned  in ;  and  after 
a  time,  during  which  I  was  conscious  that  not 
even  vows  of  poverty,  chastity,  and  obedience  are 
respected  by  fleas,  I  fell  into  a  light  sleep. 

From  this  I  was  aroused  by  a  noise  that  seemed 
like  the  call  to  judgment,  by  the  most  clamorous 
jangle  of  discordant  bells,  —  all  the  twenty  were 
ringing  at  once,  and  each  in  a  different  key.  It 
was  not  simply  a  din,  it  was  an  earthquake  of 
sound.  The  peals  were  echoed  from  the  opposite 
ledges,  and  reverberated  among  the  rocks  and 
caves  and  sharp  angles  of  the  convent,  until  the 


202  BETHLEHEM    AND    MAR    SABA 

crash  was  intolerable.  It  was  worse  than  the 
slam,  bang,  shriek,  clang,  clash,  roar,  dissonance, 
thunder,  and  hurricane  with  which  all  musicians 
think  it  absolutely  necessary  to  close  any  overture, 
symphony,  or  musical  composition  whatever,  how- 
ever decent  and  quiet  it  may  be.  It  was  enough 
to  rouse  the  deafest  pilgrim,  to  wake  the  dead 
martyrs  and  set  the  fourteen  thousand  skulls  hunt- 
ing for  their  bones,  to  call  even  St.  Sabas  himself 
from  his  tomb.  I  arose.  I  saw  in  the  starlight 
figures  moving  about  the  court,  monks  in  their 
simple  black  gowns.  It  was,  I  comprehended 
then,  the  call  to  midnight  prayer  in  the  chapel, 
and,  resolved  not  to  be  disturbed  further  by  it,  I 
climbed  back  into  my  tomb. 

But  the  clamor  continued ;  I  heard  such  a  clatter 
of  hobnailed  shoes  on  the  pavement,  besides,  that 
I  could  bear  it  no  longer,  got  up,  slipped  into  some 
of  my  clothes,  opened  the  door,  and  descended  by 
our  winding  private  stairway  into  the  court. 

The  door  of  St.  Sabas's  tomb  was  wide  open! 

Were  the  graves  opening,  and  the  dead  taking 
the  air?  Did  this  tomb  open  of  its  own  accord? 
Out  of  its  illuminated  interior  would  the  saint 
stalk  forth  and  join  this  great  procession,  the  re- 
veille of  the  quick  and  the  slow? 

From  above  and  from  below,  up  stairs  and  down 
stairs,  out  of  caves  and  grottos  and  all  odd  roost- 
ing-places,  the  monks  and  pilgrims  were  pouring 
and  streaming  into  the  court ;  and  the  bells  inces- 
santly called  more  and  more  importunately  as  the 
loiterers  delayed. 


MIDNIGHT    PRAYER  203 

The  church  was  open,  and  lighted  at  the  altar 
end.  I  glided  in  with  the  other  ghostly,  hastily 
clad,  and  yawning  pilgrims.  The  screen  at  the 
apse  before  the  holy  place,  a  mass  of  silver  and 
gilding,  sparkled  in  the  candlelight ;  the  cross  above 
it  gleamed  like  a  revelation  out  of  the  gloom ;  but 
half  of  the  church  was  in  heavy  shadow.  From 
the  penetralia  came  the  sound  of  priestly  chant- 
ing: in  the  wooden  stalls  along  each  side  of  the 
church  stood,  facing  the  altar,  the  black  and  mo- 
tionless figures  of  the  brothers.  The  pilgrims 
were  crowding  and  jostling  in  at  the  door.  A 
brother  gave  me  a  stall  near  the  door,  and  I  stood 
in  it,  as  statue-like  as  I  could,  and  became  a 
brother  for  the  time  being. 

At  the  left  of  the  door  stood  a  monk  with  impas- 
sive face;  before  him  on  a  table  were  piles  of  wax 
tapers  and  a  solitary  lighted  candle.  Every  pil- 
grim who  entered  bought  a  taper  and  paid  two  cop- 
pers for  it.  If  he  had  not  the  change  the  monk 
gave  him  change,  and  the  pilgrim  carefully 
counted  what  he  received  and  objected  to  any  piece 
he  thought  not  current.  You  may  wake  these 
people  up  any  time  of  night,  and  find  their  percep- 
tions about  money  unobscured.  The  seller  never 
looked  at  the  buyer,  nor  at  anything  except  the 
tapers  and  the  money. 

The  pilgrims  were  of  all  ages  and  grades :  very 
old  men,  stout  middle-aged  men,  and  young  ath- 
letic fellows;  there  were  Russians  from  all  the 
provinces;  Greeks  from  the  isles,  with  long  black 
locks  and  dark  eyes,  in  fancy  embroidered  jackets 


204  BETHLEHEM    AND   MAR    SABA 

and  leggins,  swarthy  bandits  and  midnight  pirates 
in  appearance.  But  it  tends  to  make  anybody 
look  like  a  pirate  to  wake  him  up  at  twelve  o'clock 
at  night,  and  haul  him  into  the  light  with  no  time 
to  comb  his  hair.  I  dare  say  that  I  may  have  ap- 
peared to  these  honest  people  like  a  Western  land- 
pirate.  And  yet  I  should  rather  meet  some  of 
those  Greeks  in  a  lighted  church  than  outside  the 
walls  at  midnight. 

Each  pilgrim  knelt  and  bowed  himself,  then 
lighted  his  taper  and  placed  it  on  one  of  the  tripods 
before  the  screen.  In  time  the  church  was  very 
fairly  illuminated,  and  nearly  filled  with  standing 
worshipers,  bowing,  crossing  themselves,  and  re- 
sponding to  the  reading  and  chanting  in  low  mur- 
murs. The  chanting  was  a  very  nasal  intoning, 
usually  slow,  but  now  and  then  breaking  into  a 
lively  gallop.  The  assemblage,  quiet  and  respect- 
ful, but  clad  in  all  the  vagaries  of  Oriental  colors 
and  rags,  contained  some  faces  that  appeared  very 
wild  in  the  half  light.  When  the  service  had 
gone  on  half  an  hour,  a  priest  came  out  with  a 
tinkling  censer  and  incensed  carefully  every  nook 
and  corner  and  person  (even  the  vestibule,  where 
some  of  the  pilgrims  slept,  which  needed  it),  until 
the  church  was  filled  with  smoke  and  perfume. 
The  performance  went  on  for  an  hour  or  more,  but 
I  crept  back  to  bed  long  before  it  was  over,  and 
fell  to  sleep  on  the  drone  of  the  intoning. 

We  were  up  before  sunrise  on  Sunday  morning. 
The  pilgrims  were  already  leaving  for  Jerusalem. 
There  was  no  trace  of  the  last  night's  revelry; 


THE   CELL   OF   ST.  SABAS  205 

everything  was  commonplace  in  the  bright  day- 
light. We  were  served  with  coffee,  and  then 
finished  our  exploration  of  the  premises. 

That  which  we  had  postponed  as  the  most  inter- 
esting sight  was  the  cell  of  St.  Sabas.  It  is  a  nat- 
ural grotto  in  the  rock,  somewhat  enlarged  either 
by  the  saint  or  by  his  successors.  When  St.  Sabas 
first  came  to  this  spot,  he  found  a  lion  in  posses- 
sion. It  was  not  the  worst  kind  of  a  lion,  but  a 
sort  of  Judaean  lion,  one  of  tl\ose  meek  beasts  over 
whom  the  ancient  hermits  had  so  much  control. 
St.  Sabas  looked  at  the  cave  and  at  the  lion,  but 
the  cave  suited  him  better  than  the  lion.  The  lion 
looked  at  the  saint,  and  evidently  knew  what  was 
passing  in  his  mind.  For  the  lions  in  those  days 
were  nearly  as  intelligent  as  anybody  else.  And 
then  St.  Sabas  told  the  lion  to  go  away,  that  he 
wanted  that  lodging  for  himself.  And  the  lion, 
without  a  growl,  put  his  tail  down,  and  immedi- 
ately went  away.  There  is  a  picture  of  this  inter- 
view still  preserved  at  the  convent,  and  any  one 
can  see  that  it  is  probable  that  such  a  lion  as  the 
artist  has  represented  would  move  on  when  re- 
quested to  do  so. 

In  the  cave  is  a  little  recess,  the  entrance  to 
which  is  a  small  hole,  a  recess  just  large  enough 
to  accommodate  a  person  in  a  sitting  posture.  In 
this  place  St.  Sabas  sat  for  seven  years,  without 
once  coming  out.  That  was  before  the  present 
walls  were  built  in  front  of  the  grotto,  and  he  had 
some  light,  —  he  sat  seven  years  on  that  hard 
stone,  as  long  as  the  present  French  Assembly  in- 


206  BETHLEHEM    AND   MAR    SABA 

tends  to  sit.  It  was  with  him  also  a  provisional 
sitting,  in  fact,  a  Septennate. 

In  the  court-yard,  as  we  were  departing,  were 
displayed  articles  to  sell  to  the  pious  pilgrims: 
canes  from  the  Jordan;  crosses  painted,  and  in- 
laid with  cedar  or  olive  wood,  or  some  sort  of  Jor- 
dan timber ;  rude  paintings  of  the  sign -board  order 
done  by  the  monks,  St.  George  and  the  Dragon 
being  the  favorite  subject;  hyperbolical  pictures 
of  the  convent  and  the  saint,  stamped  in  black 
upon  cotton  cloth;  and  holy  olive-oil  in  tin  cans. 

Perhaps  the  most  taking  article  of  merchandise 
offered  was  dates  from  the  palm-tree  that  St.  Sabas 
planted.  These  dates  have  no  seeds.  There  was 
something  appropriate  about  this ;  childless  monks, 
seedless  dates.  One  could  understand  that.  But 
these  dates  were  bought  by  the  pilgrims  to  carry 
to  their  wives  who  desire  but  have  not  sons.  By 
what  reasoning  the  monks  have  convinced  them 
that  fruitless  dates  will  be  a  cause  of  fruitfulness, 
I  do  not  know. 

We  paid  our  tribute,  climbed  up  the  stairways 
and  out  the  grim  gate  into  the  highway,  and  had 
a  glorious  ride  in  the  fresh  morning  air,  the  way 
enlivened  by  wild  -  flowers,  blue  sky,  Bedaween, 
and  troops  of  returning  pilgrims,  and  finally  en- 
nobled by  the  sight  of  Jerusalem  itself,  conspicu- 
ous on  its  hill. 


vn 


THE  FAIR  OF  MOSES  ;  THE  ARMENIAN 
PATRIARCH 

HE  Moslems  believe  that  their  religion 
superseded  Judaism  and  Christianity, 
—  Mohammed  closing-  the  culminating 
series  of  six  great  prophets,  Adam, 
Noah,  Abraham,  Moses,  Jesus,  Mohammed,  — 
and  that  they  have  a  right  to  administer  on  the  ef- 
fects of  both.  They  appropriate  our  sacred  history 
and  embellish  it  without  the  least  scruple,  assume 
exclusive  right  to  our  sacred  places,  and  enroll  in 
their  own  calendar  all  our  notable  heroes  and 
saints. 

On  the  16th  of  April  was  inaugurated  in  Jeru- 
salem the/ e#e  and  fair  of  the  Prophet  Moses.  The 
fair  is  held  yearly  at  Neby  Miisa,  a  Moslem  wely, 
in  the  wilderness  of  Judaea,  some  three  or  four 
hours  from  Jerusalem  on  a  direct  line  to  the  Dead 
Sea.  There  Moses,  according  to  the  Moslem  tra- 
dition, was  buried,  and  thither  the  faithful  resort 
in  great  crowds  at  this  anniversary,  and  hold  a 
four  days'  fair. 

At  midnight  the  air  was  humming  with  prepa- 
rations ;  the  whole  city  buzzed  like  a  hive  about  to 


208  THE   FAIR  OF  MOSES 

swarm.  For  many  days  pilgrims  had  been  gather- 
ing for  this  festival,  coming  in  on  all  the  moun- 
tain roads,  from  Gath  and  Askalon,  from  Hebron, 
from  Nablous  and  Jaffa,  —  pilgrims  as  zealous  and 
as  ragged  as  those  that  gather  to  the  Holy  Sepul- 
chre and  on  the  banks  of  the  Jordan.  In  the  early 
morning  we  heard  the  pounding  of  drums,  the  clash 
of  cymbals,  the  squeaking  of  fifes,  and  an  occa- 
sional gun,  let  off  as  it  were  by  accident,  —  very 
much  like  the  dawn  of  a  Fourth  of  July  at  home. 
Processions  were  straggling  about  the  streets,  ap- 
parently lost,  like  ward-delegations  in  search  of 
the  beginning  of  St.  Patrick's  Day;  a  disorderly 
scramble  of  rags  and  color,  a  rabble  hustling  along 
without  step  or  order,  preceded  usually  by  half  a 
dozen  enormous  flags,  green,  red,  yellow,  and 
blue,  embroidered  with  various  devices  and  texts 
from  the  Koran,  which  hung  lifeless  on  their 
staves,  but  grouped  in  mass  made  as  lively  a  study 
of  color  as  a  bevy  of  sails  of  the  Chioggia  fishing- 
boats  flocking  into  the  port  of  Venice  at  sunrise. 
Before  the  banners  walked  the  musicians,  filling 
the  narrow  streets  with  a  fearful  uproar  of  rude 
drums  and  cymbals.  These  people  seem  to  have 
inherited  the  musical  talent  of  the  ancient  Jews, 
and  to  have  the  same  passion  for  noise  and  discord. 
As  the  procession  would  not  move  to  the  Tomb 
of  Moses  until  afternoon,  we  devoted  the  morning 
to  a  visit  to  the  Armenian  Patriarch.  Isaac,  arch- 
bishop, and  by  the  grace  of  God  Patriarch  of  the 
Armenians  of  Jerusalem,  occupant  of  the  holy 
apostolic  seat  of  St.  James  (the  Armenian  convent 


THE    ARMENIAN    PATRIARCH  209 

stands  upon  the  traditional  site  of  the  martyrdom 
of  St.  James),  claims  to  be  the  spiritual  head  of 
five  millions  of  Armenians,  in  Turkey,  Syria,  Pal- 
estine, India,  and  Persia.  By  firman  from  the 
Sultan,  the  Copts  and  the  Syrian  and  the  Abys- 
sinian Christians  are  in  some  sort  under  his  juris- 
diction,  but  the  authority  is  merely  nominal. 

The  reception-room  of  the  convent  is  a  handsome 
hall  (for  Jerusalem),  extending  over  an  archway 
of  the  street  below  and  looking  upon  a  garden. 
The  walls  are  hung  with  engravings  and  litho- 
graphs, most  of  them  portraits  of  contemporary 
sovereigns  and  princes  of  Europe,  in  whose  august 
company  the  Patriarch  seems  to  like  to  sun  himself. 
We  had  not  to  wait  long  before  he  appeared  and 
gave  us  a  courteous  and  simple  welcome.  As  soon 
as  he  learned  that  we  were  Americans,  he  said  that 
he  had  something  that  he  thought  would  interest 
us,  and  going  to  his  table  took  out  of  the  drawer 
an  old  number  of  an  American  periodical  contain- 
ing a  portrait  of  an  American  publisher,  which  he 
set  great  store  by.  We  congratulated  him  upon 
his  possession  of  this  treasure,  and  expressed  our 
passionate  fondness  for  this  sort  of  thing,  for  we 
soon  discovered  the  delight  the  Patriarch  took  in 
pictures  and  especially  in  portraits,  and  not  least 
in  photographs  of  himself  in  the  full  regalia  of  his 
sacred  office.  And  with  reason,  for  he  is  probably 
the  handsomest  potentate  in  the  world.  He  is  a 
tall,  finely  proportioned  man  of  fifty  years,  and 
his  deportment  exhibits  that  happy  courtesy  which 
is  born  of  the  love  of  approbation  and  a  kindly 


210  THE    FAIR  OF  MOSES 

opinion  of  self.  He  was  clad  in  the  black  cloak 
with  the  pointed  hood  of  the  convent,  which  made 
a  fine  contrast  to  his  long,  full  beard,  turning 
white;  his  complexion  is  fair,  white  and  red,  and 
his  eyes  are  remarkably  pleasant  and  benignant. 

The  languages  at  the  command  of  the  Patriarch 
are  two,  the  Armenian  and  the  Turkish,  and  we 
were  obliged  to  communicate  with  him  through  the 
medium  of  the  latter,  Abd-el-Atti  acting  as  inter- 
preter. How  much  Turkish  our  dragoman  knew, 
and  how  familiar  his  holiness  is  with  it,  we  could 
not  tell,  but  the  conversation  went  on  briskly,  as 
it  always  does  when  Abd-el-Atti  has  control  of  it. 
When  we  had  exhausted  what  the  Patriarch  knew 
about  America  and  what  we  knew  about  Armenia, 
which  did  not  take  long  (it  was  astonishing  how 
few  things  in  all  this  world  of  things  we  knew  in 
common),  we  directed  the  conversation  upon  what 
we  supposed  would  be  congenial  and  common 
ground,  the  dogma  of  the  Trinity  and  the  point  of 
difference  between  the  Armenian  and  the  Latin 
Church.  I  cannot  say  that  we  acquired  much  light 
on  the  subject,  though  probably  we  did  better  than 
disputants  usually  do  on  this  topic.  We  had  some 
signal  advantages.  The  questions  and  answers, 
strained  through  the  Turkish  language,  were 
robbed  of  all  salient  and  noxious  points,  and  solved 
themselves  without  difficulty.  Thus,  the  "  Filio- 
que  clause "  offered  no  subtle  distinctions  to  the 
Moslem  mind  of  Abd-el-Atti,  and  he  presented  it 
to  the  Patriarch,  I  have  110  doubt,  with  perfect 
clarity.  At  any  rate,  the  reply  was  satisfactory :  — 


STRAINED   THEOLOGY  211 

"His  excellency,  he  much  oblige,  and  him  say 
he  t'ink  so." 

The  elucidation  of  this  point  was  rendered  the 
easier,  probably,  by  the  fact  that  neither  Abd-el- 
Atti  nor  the  Patriarch  nor  ourselves  knew  much 
about  it.  When  I  told  his  highness  (if,  through 
Abd-el-Atti,  I  did  tell  him)  that  the  great  Arme- 
nian convent  at  Venice,  which  holds  with  the  Pope, 
accepts  the  Latin  construction  of  the  clause,  he 
seemed  never  to  have  heard  of  the  great  Armenian 
convent  at  Venice.  At  this  point  of  the  conver- 
sation we  thought  it  wise  to  finish  the  subject  by 
the  trite  remark  that  we  believed  a  man's  life  was 
after  all  more  important  than  his  creed. 

"So  am  I,"  responded  the  dragoman,  and  the 
Patriarch  seemed  to  be  of  like  mind. 

A  new  turn  was  given  to  our  interview  by  the 
arrival  of  refreshments,  a  succession  of  sweetmeats, 
cordials,  candies,  and  coffee.  The  sweetmeats  first 
served  were  a  delicate  preserve  of  plums.  This 
was  handed  around  in  a  jar,  from  which  each  guest 
dipped  a  spoonful,  and  swallowed  it,  drinking  from 
a  glass  of  water  immediately,  —  exactly  as  we  used 
to  take  medicine  in  childhood.  The  preserve  was 
taken  away  when  each  person  had  tasted  it,  and 
shortly  a  delicious  orange  cordial  was  brought,  and 
handed  around  with  candy.  Coffee  followed.  The 
Patriarch  then  led  the  way  about  his  palace,  and 
with  some  pride  showed  us  the  gold  and  silver  in- 
signia of  his  office  and  his  rich  vestments.  On 
the  wall  of  his  study  hung  a  curious  map  of  the 
world,  printed  at  Amsterdam  in  1092,  in  Arme- 


212  THE   FAIR  OF  MOSES 

man  characters.  He  was  so  kind  also  as  to  give 
us  his  photograph,  enriched  with  his  unreadable 
autograph,  and  a  book  printed  at  the  convent,  en- 
titled Deux  Ans  de  Sejour  en  Abyssinie  ;  and  we 
had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  also  the  heroes  and  the 
author  of  the  book,  — two  Armenian  monks,  who 
undertook,  on  an  English  suggestion,  a  mission  to 
King  Theodore,  to  intercede  for  the  release  of  the 
English  prisoners  held  by  the  tyrant  of  that  land. 
They  were  detained  by  its  treacherous  and  bar- 
barous chiefs,  robbed  by  people  and  priests  alike, 
never  reached  the  headquarters  of  the  king,  and 
were  released  only  after  two  years  of  miserable 
captivity  and  suffering.  This  book  is  a  faithful 
record  of  their  journey,  and  contains  a  complete 
description  of  the  religion  and  customs  of  the 
Abyssinians,  set  down  with  the  candor  and  verbal 
nakedness  of  Herodotus.  Whatever  Christianity 
the  Abyssinians  may  once  have  had,  their  religion 
now  is  an  odd  mixture  of  Judaism,  fetichism,  and 
Christian  dogmas,  and  their  morals  a  perfect  re- 
production of  those  in  vogue  just  before  the  flood ; 
there  is  no  vice  or  disease  of  barbarism  or  of  civ- 
ilization that  is  not  with  them  of  universal  accept- 
ance. And  the  priest  Timotheus,  the  writer  of 
this  narrative,  gave  the  Abyssinians  abiding  in 
Jerusalem  a  character  no  better  than  that  of  their 
countrymen  at  home. 

The  Patriarch,  with  many  expressions  of  civility, 
gave  us  into  the  charge  of  a  monk,  who  showed  us 
all  the  parts  of  the  convent  we  had  not  seen  on  a 
previous  visit.  The  convent  is  not  only  a  wealthy 


A  MARVELOUS  SPECTACLE         213 

and  clean,  but  also  an  enlightened  establishment. 
Within  its  precincts  are  nuns  as  well  as  monks, 
and  good  schools  are  maintained  for  children  of 
both  sexes.  The  school-house,  with  its  commodi- 
ous apartments,  was  not  unlike  one  of  our  build- 
ings for  graded  schools ;  in  the  rooms  we  saw  many 
cases  of  antiquities  and  curiosities  from  various 
countries,  and  specimens  of  minerals.  A  map 
which  hung  on  the  wall,  and  was  only  one  hundred 
years  old,  showed  the  Red  Sea  flowing  into  the 
Dead  Sea,  and  the  river  Jordan  emptying  into  the 
Mediterranean.  Perhaps  the  scholars  learn  an- 
cient geography  only. 

At  twelve  the  Moslems  said  prayers  in  the 
Mosque  of  Omar,  and  at  one  o'clock  the  procession 
was  ready  to  move  out  of  St.  Stephen's  Gate.  We 
rode  around  to  that  entrance.  The  spectacle  spread 
before  us  was  marvelous.  All  the  gray  and  ragged 
slopes  and  ravines  were  gay  with  color  and  lively 
with  movement.  The  city  walls  on  the  side  over- 
looking the  Valley  of  Jehoshaphat  were  covered 
with  masses  of  people,  clinging  to  them  like  bees ; 
so  the  defenses  may  have  appeared  to  Titus  when 
he  ordered  the  assault  from  the  opposite  hill.  The 
sunken  road  leading  from  St.  Stephen's  Gate, 
down  which  the  procession  was  to  pass,  was  lined 
with  spectators,  seated  in  ranks  011  ranks  on  the 
stony  slopes.  These  were  mostly  women,  —  this 
being  one  of  the  few  days  upon  which  the  Moslem 
women  may  freely  come  abroad,  —  clad  in  pure 
white,  and  with  white  veils  drawn  about  their 
heads.  These  clouds  of  white  robes  were  relieved 


214  THE   FAIR  OF  MOSES 

here  and  there  by  flaming  spots  of  color,  for  the 
children  and  slaves  accompanied  the  women,  and 
their  dress  added  blue  and  red  and  yellow  to  the 
picture.  Men  also  mingled  in  the  throng,  display- 
ing turbans  of  blue  and  black  and  green  and  white. 
One  could  not  say  that  any  color  or  nationality  was 
wanting  in  the  spectacle.  Sprinkled  in  groups  all 
over  the  hillside,  in  the  Moslem  cemetery  and  be- 
neath it,  were  like  groups  of  color,  and  streaks  of 
it  marked  the  descent  of  every  winding  path.  The 
Prince  of  Oldenburg,  the  only  foreign  dignitaiy 
present,  had  his  tents  pitched  upon  a  knoll  outside 
the  gate,  and  other  tents  dotted  the  roadside  and 
the  hill. 

Crowds  of  people  thronged  both  sides  of  the  road 
to  the  Mount  of  Olives  and  to  Gethsemane,  spread- 
ing themselves  in  the  valley  and  extending  away 
up  the  road  of  the  Triumphal  Entry;  everywhere 
were  the  most  brilliant  effects  of  white,  red,  yel- 
low, gray,  green,  black,  and  striped  raiment:  no 
matter  what  these  Orientals  put  on,  it  becomes  pic- 
turesque, —  old  coffee-bags,  old  rags  and  carpets, 
anything.  There  could  not  be  a  finer  place  for  a 
display  than  these  two  opposing  hillsides,  the  nar- 
row valley,  and  the  winding  roads,  which  increased 
the  apparent  length  of  the  procession  and  set  it  off 
to  the  best  advantage.  We  were  glad  of  the  op- 
portunity to  see  this  ancient  valley  of  bones  revived 
in  a  manner  to  recall  the  pageants  and  shows  of 
centuries  ago,  and  as  we  rode  down  the  sunken  road 
in  advance  of  the  procession,  we  imagined  how  we 
might  have  felt  if  we  had  been  mounted  on  horses 


AN    ORIENTAL    PROCESSION  215 

or  elephants  instead  of  donkeys,  and  if  we  had 
been  conquerors  leading  a  triumph,  and  these  peo- 
ple on  either  hand  had  been  cheering  us  instead 
of  jeering  us.  Turkish  soldiers,  stationed  every 
thirty  paces,  kept  the  road  clear  for  the  expected 
cavalcade.  In  order  to  see  it  and  the  spectators  to 
the  best  advantage,  we  took  position  on  the  oppo- 
site side  of  the  valley  and  below  the  road  around 
the  Mount  of  Olives. 

The  procession  was  a  good  illustration  of  the 
shallow  splendor  of  the  Orient;  it  had  no  order, 
no  uniformity,  no  organization;  it  dragged  itself 
along  at  the  whim  of  its  separate  squads.  First 
came  a  guard  of  soldiers,  then  a  little  huddle  of 
men  of  all  sorts  of  colors  and  apparel,  bearing  sev- 
eral flags,  among  them  the  green  Flag  of  Moses; 
after  an  interval  another  squad,  bearing  large  and 
gorgeous  flags,  preceded  by  musicians  beating 
drums  and  cymbals.  In  front  of  the  drums  danced, 
or  rather  hitched  forward  with  stately  steps,  two 
shabby  fellows,  throwing  their  bodies  from  side  to 
side  and  casting  their  arms  about,  clashing  cym- 
bals and  smirking  with  infinite  conceit.  At  long 
intervals  came  other  like  bands,  with  flags  and 
music,  in  such  disorder  as  scarcely  to  be  told  from 
the  spectators,  except  that  they  bore  guns  and  pis- 
tols, which  they  continually  fired  into  the  air  and 
close  over  the  heads  of  the  crowd,  with  a  reckless 
profusion  of  powder  and  the  most  murderous  ap- 
pearance. To  these  followed  mounted  soldiers  in 
white,  witli  a  Turkish  band  of  music,  —  worse  than 
any  military  band  in  Italy;  and  after  this  the 


216  THE   FAIR    OF   MOSES 

pasha,  the  governor  of  the  city,  a  number  of  civil 
and  military  dignitaries  and  one  or  two  high  ule- 
mas,  and  a  green-clad  representative  of  the  Pro- 
phet, —  a  beggar  on  horseback,  —  on  fiery  horses 
which  curveted  about  in  the  crowd,  excited  by  the 
guns,  the  music,  and  the  discharge  of  a  cannon 
now  and  then,  which  was  stationed  at  the  gate  of 
St.  Stephen.  Among  the  insignia  displayed  were 
two  tall  instruments  of  brass,  which  twirled  and 
glittered  in  the  sun,  not  like  the  golden  candlestick 
of  the  Jews,  nor  the  "host"  of  the  Catholics,  nor 
the  sistrum  of  the  ancient  Egyptians,  but,  per- 
haps, as  Moslemism  is  a  reminiscence  of  all  reli- 
gions, a  caricature  of  all  three. 

The  crush  in  the  narrow  road  round  the  hill  and 
the  grouping  of  all  the  gorgeous  banners  there  pro- 
duced a  momentary  fine  effect ;  but  generally,  save 
for  the  spectators,  the  display  was  cheap  and  child- 
ish. Only  once  did  we  see  either  soldiers  or  civil- 
ians marching  in  order;  there  were  five  fellows  in 
line  carrying  Nubian  spears,  and  also  five  sappers 
and  miners  in  line,  wearing  leathern  aprons  and 
bearing  theatrical  battle-axes.  As  to  the  arms,  we 
could  discover  no  two  guns  of  the  same  pattern  in 
all  the  multitude  of  guns ;  like  most  things  in  the 
East,  the  demonstration  was  one  of  show,  color, 
and  noise,  not  to  be  examined  too  closely,  but  to 
be  taken  with  faith,  as  we  eat  dates.  A  company 
of  Sheridan's  cavalry  would  have  scattered  the 
entire  army. 

The  procession,  having  halted  on  the  brow  of 
the  hill,  countermarched  and  returned;  but  the 


A   GORGEOUS    DEMONSTRATION  217 

Flag  of  Moses  and  its  guard  went  on  to  the  camp, 
at  his  tomb,  there  to  await  the  arrival  of  the  pil- 
grims on  the  Monday  following.  And  the  most 
gorgeous  Moslem  demonstration  of  the  year  was 
over. 


VIII 


DEPARTURE  FROM  JERUSALEM 


HE  day  came  to  leave  Jerusalem. 
Circumstances  rendered  it  impossible 
for  us  to  make  the  overland  trip  to 
Damascus  or  even  to  Haifa.  Our 
regret  that  we  should  not  see  Bethel,  Shechem, 
Samaria,  Nazareth,  and  the  Sea  of  Galilee  was 
somewhat  lessened  by  the  thought  that  we  knew 
the  general  character  of  the  country  and  the  vil- 
lages, by  what  we  had  already  seen,  and  that  ex- 
perience had  taught  us  the  inevitable  disenchant- 
ment of  seeing  the  historical  and  the  sacred  places 
of  Judaea.  It  is  not  that  one  visits  a  desert  and  a 
heap  of  ruins,  —  that  would  be  endurable  and  even 
stimulating  to  the  imagination;  but  every  locality 
which  is  dear  to  the  reader  by  some  divine  visi- ' 
tation,  or  wonderful  by  some  achievement  of  hero 
or  prophet,  is  degraded  by  the  presence  of  sordid 
habitations,  and  a  mixed,  vicious,  and  unsavory 
population,  or  incrusted  with  the  most  puerile 
superstitions,  so  that  the  traveler  is  fain  to  con- 
tent himself  with  a  general  view  of  the  unchanged 
features  of  the  country.  It  must  be  with  a  certain 
feeling  of  humiliation  that  at  Nazareth,  for  in- 


THE  TOURIST'S  DISAPPOINTMENT        219 

stance,  the  object  of  his  pilgrimage  is  belittled  to 
the  inspection  of  such  inventions  as  the  spot  upon 
which  the  Virgin  stood  when  she  received  the  an- 
nunciation, and  the  carpenter-shop  in  which  Joseph 
worked. 

At  any  rate,  we  let  such  thoughts  predominate, 
when  we  were  obliged  to  relinquish  the  overland 
journey.  And  whatever  we  missed,  I  flatter  my- 
self that  the  readers  of  these  desultory  sketches 
will  lose  nothing.  I  should  have  indulged  a  cer- 
tain curiosity  in  riding  over  a  country  as  rich  in 
memories  as  it  is  poor  in  aspect,  but  I  should  have 
been  able  to  add  nothing  to  the  minute  descrip- 
tions and  vivid  pictures  with  which  the  Christian 
world  is  familiar;  and,  if  the  reader  will  excuse 
an  additional  personal  remark,  I  have  not  had  the 
presumption  to  attempt  a  description  of  Palestine 
and  Syria  (which  the  volumes  of  Robinson  and 
Thompson  and  Porter  have  abundantly  given),  but 
only  to  make  a  record  of  limited  travel  and  obser- 
vation. What  I  most  regretted  was  that  we  could 
not  see  the  green  and  fertile  plain  of  Esdraelon, 
the  flower-spangled  meadow  of  Jezreel,  and  the 
forests  of  Tabor  and  Carmel,  —  seats  of  beauty 
and  of  verdure,  and  which,  with  the  plain  of 
Sharon,  might  serve  to  mitigate  the  picture  of  grim 
desolation  which  the  tourist  carries  away  from  the 
Holy  Land. 

Finally,  it  was  with  a  feeling  akin  to  regret  that 
we  looked  our  last  upon  gray  and  melancholy  Je- 
rusalem. We  had  grown  a  little  familiar  with  its 
few  objects  of  past  or  present  grandeur,  the  Sara- 


220  DEPARTURE    FROM    JERUSALEM 

cenic  walls  and  towers,  the  Temple  platform  and 
its  resplendent  mosque,  the  agglomeration  called 
the  Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre,  the  ruins  of  the 
palace  and  hospice  of  the  Knights  of  St.  John, 
the  massive  convents  and  hospices  of  various  na- 
tions and  sects  that  rise  amid  the  indistinguishable 
huddle  of  wretched  habitations,  threaded  by  filthy 
streets  and  noisome  gutters.  And  yet  we  confessed 
to  the  inevitable  fascination  which  is  always  exer- 
cised upon  the  mind  by  antiquity;  the  mysterious 
attraction  of  association ;  the  undefinable  influence 
in  decay  and  desolation  which  holds  while  it  re- 
pels ;  the  empire,  one  might  say  the  tyranny,  over 
the  imagination  and  the  will  which  an  ancient  city 
asserts,  as  if  by  force  of  an  immortal  personality, 
compelling  first  curiosity,  then  endurance,  then 
sympathy,  and  finally  love.  Jerusalem  has  neither 
the  art,  the  climate,  the  antiquities,  nor  the  society 
which  draw  the  world  and  hold  it  captive  in  Rome, 
but  its  associations  enable  it  to  exercise,  in  a  de- 
gree, the  same  attraction.  Its  attraction  is  in  its 
historic  spell  and  name,  and  in  spite  of  the  mod- 
ern city. 

Jerusalem,  in  fact,  is  incrusted  with  layer  upon 
layer  of  inventions,  the  product  of  credulity,  cun- 
ning, and  superstition ;  a  monstrous  growth,  always 
enlarging,  so  that  already  the  simple  facts  of  his- 
tory are  buried  almost  beyond  recognition  beneath 
this  mass  of  rubbish.  Perhaps  it  would  have  been 
better  for.  the  growth  of  Christianity  in  the  world 
if  Jerusalem  had  been  abandoned,  had  become  like 
Carthage  and  Memphis  and  Tadmor  in  the  wilder- 


CHRISTIANITY   IN   JERUSALEM  221 

ness,  and  the  modern  pilgrim  were  free  to  choose 
his  seat  upon  a  fallen  wall  or  mossy  rock,  and 
reconstruct  for  himself  the  pageant  of  the  past, 
and  recall  that  Living  Presence,  undisturbed  by 
the  impertinences  which  belittle  the  name  of  reli- 
gion. It  has  always  been  held  well  that  the  place 
of  the  burial  of  Moses  was  unknown.  It  would 
perhaps  have  conduced  to  the  purity  of  the  Chris- 
tian faith  if  no  attempt  had  ever  been  made  to 
break  through  the  obscurity  which  rests  upon  the 
place  of  the  sepulchre  of  Christ.  Invention  has 
grown  upon  invention,  and  we  have  the  Jerusalem 
of  to-day  as  a  result  of  the  exaggerated  importance 
attached  to  the  localization  of  the  Divine  manifes- 
tation. Whatever  interest  Jerusalem  has  for  the 
antiquarian,  or  for  the  devout  mind,  it  is  undeni- 
able that  one  must  seek  in  other  lands  and  among 
other  peoples  for  the  robust  virtue,  the  hatred  of 
shams  and  useless  forms,  the  sweet  charity,  the 
invigorating  principles,  the  high  thinking,  and  the 
simple  worship  inculcated  by  the  Founder  of  Chris- 
tianity. 

The  horses  were  ready.  Jerusalem  had  just 
begun  to  stir;  an  itinerant  vender  of  coffee  had 
set  up  his  tray  on  the  street,  and  was  lustily  call- 
ing to  catch  the  attention  of  the  early  workmen,  or 
the  vagrants  who  pick  themselves  up  from  the 
doorsteps  at  dawn  and  begin  to  reconnoitre  for  the 
necessary  and  cheap  taste  of  coffee,  with  which  the 
Oriental  day  opens;  the  sky  was  overcast,  and  a 
drop  or  two  of  rain  fell  as  we  were  getting  into 
the  saddle,  but  "It  is  nothing,"  said  the  stirrup- 


222       DEPARTURE  FROM  JERUSALEM 

holder,  "it  goes  to  be  a  beautiful  time;  "  and  so  it 
proved. 

Scarcely  were  we  outside  the  city  when  it  cleared 
superbly,  and  we  set  forward  on  our  long  ride  of 
thirty-six  miles,  to  the  sea-coast,  in  high  spirits. 
We  turned  to  catch  the  first  sunlight  upon  the  gray 
Tower  of  David,  and  then  went  gayly  on  over  the 
cool  free  hills,  inhaling  the  sparkling  air  and  the 
perfume  of  wild-flowers,  and  exchanging  greetings 
with  the  pilgrims,  Moslem  and  Christian,  who 
must  have  broken  up  their  camps  in  the  hills  at 
the  earliest  light.  There  are  all  varieties  of  na- 
tionality and  costume,  and  many  of  the  peaceful 
pilgrims  are  armed  as  if  going  to  a  military  ren- 
dezvous; perhaps  our  cavalcade,  which  is  also  an 
assorted  one  of  horses,  donkeys,  and  mules,  is  as 
amusing  as  any  we  meet.  I  am  certain  that  the 
horse  that  one  of  the  ladies  rides  is  unique,  a  mere 
framework  of  bones  which  rattle  as  he  agitates 
himself;  a  rear  view  of  the  animal,  and  his  twist- 
ing and  interlacing  legs,  when  he  moves  briskly, 
suggest  a  Chinese  puzzle. 

We  halted  at  the  outlet  of  Wady  'Aly,  where 
there  is  an  inn,  which  has  the  appearance  of  a 
Den  of  Thieves,  and  took  our  lunch  upon  some 
giant  rocks  under  a  fig-tree,  the  fruit  of  which  was 
already  half  grown.  Here  I  discovered  another 
black  calla,  and  borrowed  a  pick  of  the  landlord  to 
endeavor  to  dig  up  its  bulb.  But  it  was  impos- 
sible to  extract  it  from  the  rocks,  and  when  I  re- 
turned the  tool,  the  owner  demanded  pay  for  the 
use  of  it;  I  told  him  that  if  he  would  come  to 


THE   SARACEN    TOWER  223 

America,  I  would  lend  him  a  pick,  and  let  him  dig 
all  day  in  the  garden,  —  a  liberality  which  he  was 
unable  to  comprehend. 

By  four  o'clock  we  were  at  Ramleh,  and  turned 
aside  to  inspect  the  so-called  Saracen  tower;  it 
stands  upon  one  side  of  a  large  iiiclosure  of  walls 
and  arches,  an  extensive  ruin;  under  ground  are 
vaulted  constructions  apparently  extending  as  far 
as  the  ruins  above,  reminding  one  of  the  remains 
of  the  hospice  of  St.  John  at  Jerusalem.  In  its 
form  and  treatment  and  feeling  this  noble  tower  is 
Gothic,  and,  taking  it  in  connection  with  the  re- 
mains about  it,  I  should  have  said  it  was  of  Chris- 
tian construction,  in  spite  of  the  Arabic  inscription 
over  one  of  the  doorways,  which  might  have  been 
added  when  the  Saracens  took  possession  of  it; 
but  I  believe  that  antiquarians  have  decided  that 
the  tower  was  erected  by  Moslems.  These  are  the 
most  "rural"  ruins  we  had  seen  in  the  East;  they 
are  time-stained  and  weather-colored,  like  the  re- 
mains of  an  English  abbey,  and  stand  in  the  midst 
of  a  green  and  most  lovely  country;  no  sand,  no 
nakedness,  no  beggars.  Grass  fills  all  the  iiiclo- 
sure, and  grain-fields  press  close  about  it.  No 
view  could  be  more  enchanting  than  that  of  the 
tower  and  the  rolling  plain  at  that  hour:  the 
bloom  on  the  wheat-fields,  flecked  with  flaming 
poppies ;  the  silver  of  the  olive  groves ;  the  beds  of 
scarlet  anemones  and  yellow  buttercups,  blotch- 
ing the  meadows  \vith  brilliant  colors  like  a  pic- 
ture of  Turner :  the  soft  gray  hills  of  Judtva;  the 
steeples  and  minarets  of  the  city.  All  Kanileh  is 


224       DEPARTURE  FROM  JERUSALEM 

built  on  and  amid  ruins,  half -covered  arches  and 
vaults. 

Twilight  came  upon  us  while  we  were  yet  in  the 
interminable  plain,  but  Jaffa  announced  itself  by 
its  orange-blossoms  long  before  we  entered  its  strag- 
gling suburbs;  indeed,  when  we  were  three  miles 
away,  the  odor  of  its  gardens,  weighted  by  the 
night-air,  was  too  heavy  to  be  agreeable.  At  a 
distance  this  odor  was  more  perceptible  than  in 
the  town  itself;  but  next  day,  in  the  full  heat  of 
the  sun,  we  found  it  so  overpowering  as  to  give  a 
tendency  to  headache. 


IX 


ALONG  THE  SYRIAN  COAST 

UR  only  business  in  Jaffa  being  to  get 
away  from  it,  we  impatiently  expected 
the  arrival  of  the  Austrian  Lloyd 
steamer  for  Beyrout,  the  Venus,  a  fickle 
and  unsteady  craft,  as  its  name  implies.  In  the 
afternoon  we  got  on  board,  taking  note  as  we  left 
the  land  of  the  great  stones  that  jut  out  into  the 
sea,  "  where  the  chains  with  which  Andromeda  was 
bound  have  left  their  footsteps,  which  attest  [says 
Josephus]  the  antiquity  of  that  fable."  The  Ve- 
nus, which  should  have  departed  at  three  o'clock, 
lay  rolling  about  amid  the  tossing  and  bobbing  and 
crushing  crowd  of  boats  and  barges  till  late  in  the 
evening,  taking  in  boxes  of  oranges  and  bags  of 
barley,  by  the  slow  process  of  hoisting  up  one  or 
two  at  a  time.  The  ship  was  lightly  loaded  with 
freight,  but  overrun  with  third-class  passengers, 
returning  pilgrims  from  Mecca  and  from  Jerusa- 
lem (whom  the  waters  of  the  Jordan  seemed  not 
to  have  benefited),  who  invaded  every  part  of  deck, 
cabin,  and  hold,  and  spreading  their  beds  under 
the  windows  of  the  cabins  of  the  first-class  pas- 
sengers, reduced  the  whole  company  to  a  common 


226  ALONG   THE    SYRIAN    COAST 

disgust.  The  light  load  caused  the  vessel  to  roll 
a  little,  and  there  was  nothing  agreeable  in  the 
situation. 

The  next  morning  we  were  in  the  harbor  of 
Haifa,  under  the  shadow  of  Mt.  Carmel,  and  rose 
^arly  to  read  about  Elijah,  and  to  bring  as  near  to 
ds  as  we  could  with  an  opera-glass  the  convent  and 
the  scene  of  Elijah's  victory  over  the  priests  of 
Baal.  The  noble  convent  we  saw,  and  the  brow 
of  Carmel,  which  the  prophet  ascended  to  pray  for 
rain ;  but  the  place  of  the  miraculous  sacrifice  is 
on  the  other  side,  in  view  of  the  plain  of  Esdrae- 
lon,  and  so  is  the  plain  by  the  river  Kishon  where 
Elijah  slew  the  four  hundred  and  fifty  prophets  of 
Baal,  whom  he  had  already  mocked  and  defeated. 
The  grotto  of  Elijah  is  shown  in  the  hill,  and  the 
monks  who  inhabit  the  convent  regard  themselves 
as  the  successors  of  an  unbroken  succession  of  holy 
occupants  since  the  days  of  the  great  prophet. 
Their  sumptuous  quarters  would  no  doubt  excite 
the  indignation  of  Elijah  and  Elisha,  who  would 
not  properly  discriminate  between  the  modern 
reign  of  Mammon  and  the  ancient  rule  of  Baal. 
Haifa  itself  is  only  a  huddle  of  houses  on  the  beach. 
Ten  miles  across  the  curving  bay  we  saw  the  bat- 
tlements of  Akka,  on  its  triangle  of  land  jutting 
into  the  sea,  above  the  mouth  of  Kishon,  out  of 
the  fertile  and  world-renowned  plain.  We  see  it 
more  distinctly  as  we  pass;  and  if  we  were  to  land 
we  should  see  little  more,  for  few  fragments  remain 
to  attest  its  many  masters  and  strange  vicissitudes. 
A  prosperous  seat  of  the  Phoenicians,  it  offered 


TYRE  227 

hospitality  to  the  fat-loving  tribe  of  Asher ;  it  was 
a  Greek  city  of  wealth  and  consequence ;  it  was 
considered  the  key  of  Palestine  during  the  Cru- 
sades, and  the  headquarters  of  the  Templars  and 
the  Knights  of  St.  John;  and  in  more  modern 
times  it  had  the  credit  of  giving  the  checkmate  to 
the  feeble  imitation  of  Alexander  in  the  East  at- 
tempted by  Napoleon  I. 

The  day  was  cloudy  and  a  little  cool,  and  not 
unpleasant;  but  there  existed  all  day  a  ground- 
swell  which  is  full  of  all  nastiness,  and  a  short  sea 
which  aggravated  the  ground-swell;  and  although 
we  sailed  by  the  Lebanon  mountains  and  along  an 
historic  coast,  bristling  with  suggestions,  and  with 
little  but  suggestions,  of  an  heroic  past,  by  Akka 
and  Tyre  and  Sidon,  we  were  mostly  indifferent 
to  it  all.  The  Mediterranean,  on  occasion,  takes 
away  one's  appetite  even  for  ruins  and  ancient 
history. 

We  can  distinguish,  as  we  sail  by  it,  the  mean 
modern  town  which  wears  still  the  royal  purple 
name  of  Tyre,  and  the  peninsula,  formerly  the 
island,  upon  which  the  old  town  stood  and  which 
gave  it  its  name.  The  Arabs  still  call  it  Tsur  or 
Sur,  "the  rock,"  and  the  ancients  fancied  that  this 
island  of  rock  had  the  form  of  a  ship  and  was  typ- 
ical of  the  maritime  pursuits  of  its  people.  Some 
have  thought  it  more  like  the  cradle  of  commerce 
which  Tyre  is  sometimes,  though  erroneously,  said 
to  be;  for  she  was  only  the  daughter  of  Sidon, 
and  did  but  inherit  from  her  mother  the  secret  of 
the  mastery  of  the  seas.  There  were  two  cities  of 


228        ALONG  THE  SYRIAN  COAST 

Tyre,  —  the  one  on  the  island,  and  another  on  the 
shore.  Tyre  is  not  an  old  city  in  the  Eastern 
reckoning,  the  date  of  its  foundation  as  a  great 
power  only  rising  to  about  1200  B.  c.,  about  the 
time  of  the  Trojan  war,  and  after  the  fall  of 
Sidon,  although  there  was  a  city  there  a  couple  of 
centuries  earlier,  when  Joshua  and  his  followers 
conquered  the  hill-countries  of  Palestine ;  it  could 
never  in  its  days  of  greatness  have  been  large, 
probably  containing  not  more  than  30,000  to 
40,000  inhabitants,  but  its  reputation  was  dispro- 
portionate to  its  magnitude;  Joshua  calls  it  the 
"strong  city  Tyre,"  and  it  had  the  entire  respect 
of  Jerusalem  in  the  most  haughty  days  of  the  lat- 
ter. Tyre  seems  to  have  been  included  in  the  "  in- 
heritance" allotted  to  Asher,  but  that  luxurious 
son  of  Jacob  yielded  to  the  Phoenicians  and  not 
they  to  him ;  indeed,  the  parceling  of  territory  to 
the  Israelitish  tribes,  on  condition  that  they  would 
conquer  it,  recalls  the  liberal  dying  bequest  made 
by  a  tender  Virginian  to  his  son,  of  one  hundred 
thousand  dollars  if  he  could  make  it.  The  sea- 
coast  portion  of  the  Ganaanites,  or  the  Phoenicians, 
was  never  subdued  by  the  Jews ;  it  preserved  a 
fortunate  independence,  in  order  that,  under  the 
Providence  that  protected  the  Phoenicians,  after 
having  given  the  world  "letters  "  and  the  first  im- 
pulse of  all  the  permanent  civilization  that  written 
language  implies,  they  could  still  bless  it  by  teach- 
ing it  commerce,  and  that  wide  exchange  of  pro- 
ducts which  is  a  practical  brotherhood  of  man. 
The  world  was  spared  the  calamity  of  the  descent 


ARTS    OF   THE   PHOENICIANS  229 

of  the  tribes  of  Israel  upon  the  Phranician  cities 
of  the  coast,  and  art  was  permitted  to  grow  with 
industry;  unfortunately  the  tribes  who  formed  the 
kingdom  of  Israel  were  capable  of  imitating  only 
the  idolatrous  worship  and  the  sensuality  of  their 
more  polished  neighbors.  Such  an  ascendency  did 
Tyre  obtain  in  Jewish  affairs  through  the  princess 
Jezebel  and  the  reception  of  the  priests  of  Baal, 
that  for  many  years  both  Samaria  and  Jerusalem 
might  almost  be  called  dependencies  of  the  city  of 
the  god,  "the  lord  Melkarth,  Baal  of  Tyre." 

The  arts  of  the  Phoenicians  the  Jews  were  not 
apt  to  learn;  the  beautiful  bronze-work  of  their 
temples  was  executed  by  Tyrians,  and  their  curi- 
ous work  in  wood  also ;  the  secret  of  the  famous 
purple  dye  of  the  royal  stuffs  which  the  Jews  cov- 
eted was  known  only  to  the  Tyrians,  who  extracted 
from  a  sea-mussel  this  dark  red  violet ;  when  the 
Jews  built,  Tyrian  workmen  were  necessary ;  when 
Solomon  undertook  his  commercial  ventures  into 
the  far  Orient,  it  was  Tyrians  who  built  his  ships 
at  Ezion-geber,  and  it  was  Tyrian  sailors  who 
manned  them;  the  Pho3nicians  carried  the  manu- 
facture of  glass  to  a  perfection  unknown  to  the  an- 
cient Egyptians,  producing  that  beautiful  ware  the 
art  of  which  was  revived  by  the  Venetians  in  the 
sixteenth  century;  the  Jews  did  not  learn  from 
the  Pho3iiicians,  but  the  Greeks  did,  how  to  make 
that  graceful  pottery  and  to  paint  the  vases  which 
are  the  despair  of  modern  imitators ;  the  Tyrian 
mariners,  following  the  Sidonian,  supplied  the 
Mediterranean  countries,  including  Egypt,  with 


230        ALONG  THE  SYRIAN  COAST 

tin  for  the  manufacture  of  bronze,  by  adventurous 
voyages  as  far  as  Britain,  and  110  people  ever  ex- 
celled them  in  the  working  of  bronze,  as  none  in 
their  time  equaled  them  in  the  carving  of  ivory, 
the  engraving  of  precious  metals,  and  the  cutting 
and  setting  of  jewels. 

Unfortunately,  scarcely  anything  remains  of  the 
abundant  literature  of  the  Phrenicians,  —  for  the 
Canaanites  were  a  literary  people  before  the  inva- 
sion of  Joshua;  their  language  was  Semitic,  and 
almost  identical  with  the  Hebrew,  although  they 
were  descendants  of  Ham;  not  only  their  light 
literature,  but  their  historical  records  have  dis- 
appeared, and  we  have  small  knowledge  of  their 
kings  or  their  great  men.  The  one  we  are  most 
familiar  with  is  the  shrewd  and  liberal  Hiram  (I 
cannot  tell  why  he  always  reminds  me  of  General 
Grant),  who  exchanged  riddles  with  Solomon,  and 
shared  with  the  mountain  king  the  profits  of  his 
maritime  skill  and  experience.  Hiram's  tomb  is 
still  pointed  out  to  the  curious,  at  Tyre;  and  the 
mutations  of  religions  and  the  freaks  of  fortune 
are  illustrated  by  the  chance  that  has  grouped  so 
closely  together  the  graves  of  Hiram,  of  Fred- 
erick Barbarossa,  and  of  Origen. 

Late  in  the  afternoon  we  came  in  sight  of  Sidon, 
that  ancient  city  which  the  hand-book  infers  was 
famous  at  the  time  of  the  appearance  of  Joshua, 
since  that  skillful  captain  speaks  of  it  as  "Great 
Zidon."  Famous  it  doubtless  had  been  long  be- 
fore his  arrival,  but  the  epithet  "  great "  merely 
distinguished  the  two  cities ;  for  Sidon  was  divided 


SIDON  231 

like  Tyre,  "Great  Sidon"  being  on  the  shore  and 
"Little  Sidon"  at  some  distance  inland.  Tradi- 
tion says  it  was  built  by  Sidon,  the  great-grandson 
of  Noah ;  but  however  this  may  be,  it  is  doubtless 
the  oldest  Phoenician  city  except  Gebel,  which  is 
on  the  coast  north  of  Beyrout.  It  is  now  for  the 
antiquarian  little  more  than  a  necropolis,  and  a 
heap  of  stones,  on  which  fishermen  dry  their  nets, 
although  some  nine  to  ten  thousand  people  occupy 
its  squalid  houses.  What  we  see  of  it  is  the  ridge 
of  rocks  forming  the  shallow  harbor,  and  the  pic- 
turesque arched  bridge  (with  which  engravings 
have  made  us  familiar)  that  connects  a  ruined  for- 
tress on  a  detached  rock  with  the  rocky  peninsula. 

Sidon  carries  us  far  back  into  antiquity.  When 
the  Canaanitish  tribes  migrated  from  their  seat  on 
the  Persian  Gulf,  a  part  of  them  continued  their 
march  as  far  as  Egypt.  It  seems  to  be  settled 
that  the  Hittites  (or  Khitas)  were  the  invaders  who 
overran  the  land  of  the  Pharaohs,  sweeping  away 
in  their  barbarous  violence  nearly  all  the  monu- 
ments of  the  civilization  of  preceding  eras,  and 
placing  upon  the  throne  of  that  old  empire  the 
race  of  Shepherd  kings.  It  was  doubtless  during 
the  dynasty  of  the  Shepherds  that  Abraham  visited 
Egypt,  and  it  was  a  Pharaoh  of  Hittite  origin  who 
made  Joseph  his  minister.  It  was  after  the  expul- 
sion of  the  Shepherds  and  the  establishment  of  a 
dynasty  "which  knew  not  Joseph  "  that  the  Israel- 
ites were  oppressed. 

But  the  Canaanites  did  not  all  pass  beyond 
Syria  and  Palestine;  some  among  them,  who  af- 


232  ALONG  THE    SYRIAN   COAST 

terwards  were  distinctively  known  as  Phoenicians, 
established  a  maritime  kingdom,  and  founded 
among  other  cities  that  of  Sidon.  This  maritime 
branch  no  doubt  kept  up  an  intercourse  with  the 
other  portions  of  the  Caananite  family  in  Southern 
Syria  and  in  Egypt,  before  the  one  was  driven  out 
of  Egypt  by  the  revolution  which  restored  the  rule 
of  the  Egyptian  Pharaohs,  and  the  other  expelled 
by  the  advent  of  the  Philistines.  And  it  seems 
altogether  probable  that  the  Phosnicians  received 
from  Egypt  many  arts  which  they  afterwards  im- 
proved and  perfected.  It  is  tolerably  certain  that 
they  borrowed  from  Egypt  the  hieratic  writing, 
or  some  of  its  characters,  which  taught  them  to 
represent  the  sounds  of  their  language  by  the 
alphabet  which  they  gave  to  the  world.  The 
Sidonians  were  subjugated  by  Thotmes  III.,  with 
all  Phoenicia,  and  were  for  centuries  the  useful  al-* 
lies  of  the  Egyptians ;  but  their  dominion  was  over 
the  sea,  and  they  spread  their  colonies  first  to  the 
Grecian  isles  and  then  along  the  African  coast; 
and  in  the  other  direction  sent  their  venturesome 
barks  as  far  as  Colchis  on  the  Black  Sea.  They 
seem  to  have  thrived  most  under  the  Egyptian 
supremacy,  for  the  Pharaohs  had  need  of  their 
sailors  and  their  ships.  In  the  latter  days  of  the 
empire,  in  the  reign  of  Necho,  it  was  Phoenician 
sailors  who,  at  his  command,  circumnavigated 
Africa,  passing  down  the  Red  Sea  and  returning 
through  the  Pillars  of  Hercules. 

The  few  remains  of  Sidon  which  we  see  to-day 
are  only  a  few  centuries  old,  —  six  or  seven ;  there 


THE   PALESTINE   OF   ANTIQUITY  233 

are  no  monuments  to  carry  us  back  to  the  city 
famous  in  arts  and  arms,  of  which  Homer  sang; 
and  if  there  were,  the  antiquity  of  this  hoary  coast 
would  still  elude  us.  Herodotus  says  that  the 
temple  of  Melkarth  at  Tyre  (the  "daughter  of 
Sidon")  was  built  about  2300  B.  c.  Probably 
he  errs  by  a  couple  of  centuries ;  for  it  was  only 
something  like  twenty-three  centuries  before  Christ 
that  the  Canaanites  came  into  Palestine,  that  is  to 
say,  late  in  the  thirteenth  Egyptian  dynasty,  —  a 
dynasty  which,  according  to  the  list  of  Manetho 
and  Mariette  Bey,  is  separated  from  the  reign  of 
the  first  Egyptian  king  by  an  interval  of  twenty- 
seven  centuries.  When  Abraham  wandered  from 
Mesopotamia  into  Palestine  he  found  the  Canaan- 
ites in  possession.  But  they  were  comparatively 
new  comers ;  they  had  found  the  land  already  oc- 
cupied by  a  numerous  population  who  were  so  far 
advanced  in  civilization  as  to  have  built  many  cit- 
ies. Among  the  peoples  holding  the  land  before 
them  were  the  Rephaim,  who  had  sixty  strong 
towns  in  what  is  now  the  wilderness  of  Bashan; 
there  were  also  the  Emini,  the  Zamzummim,  and 
the  Auakim,  —  perhaps  primitive  races  and  per- 
haps conquerors  of  a  people  farther  back  in  the 
twilight,  remnants  of  whom  still  remained  in  Pal- 
estine when  the  Jews  began,  in  their  turn,  to  level 
its  cities  to  the  earth,  and  who  lived  in  the  Jewish 
traditions  as  "giants." 


BEYROUT.— OVER  THE   LEBANON 


LL  the  afternoon  we  had  the  noble 
range  of  Mt.  Lebanon  in  view,  and 
towards  five  o'clock  we  saw  the  desert- 
like  promontory  upon  which  Beyrout 
stands.  This  bold  headland,  however,  changed  its 
appearance  when  we  had  rounded  it  and  came  into 
the  harbor ;  instead  of  sloping  sand  we  had  a  rocky 
coast,  and  rising  from  the  bay  a  couple  of  hundred 
feet,  Beyrout,  first  the  shabby  old  city,  and  then 
the  new  portion  higher  up,  with  its  villas,  embow- 
ered in  trees.  To  the  right,  upon  the  cliffs  over- 
looking the  sea,  is  the  American  college,  an  insti- 
tution whose  conspicuous  position  is  only  a  fair 
indication  of  its  preeminent  importance  in  the 
East;  and  it  is  to  be  regretted  that  it  does  not 
make  a  better  architectural  show.  Behind  Bey- 
rout, in  a  vast  circular  sweep,  rise  the  Lebanon 
mountains,  clothed  with  trees  and  vineyards,  ter- 
raced and  studded  with  villas  and  villages.  The 
view  is  scarcely  surpassed  anywhere  for  luxuriance 
and  variety.  It  seems  to  us  that  if  we  had  an  im- 
pulse to  go  on  a  mission  anywhere  it  would  be  to 
the  wicked  of  this  fertile  laud. 


AT   THE   CUSTOM-HOUSE  235 

At  Beyrout  also  passengers  must  land  in  small 
boats.  We  were  at  once  boarded  by  the  most 
ruffianly  gang  of  boatmen  we  had  yet  seen,  who 
poured  through  the  gateways  and  climbed  over  the 
sides  of  the  vessel,  like  privileged  pirates,  tread- 
ing down  people  in  their  way.  It  was  only  after 
a  severe  struggle  that  we  reached  our  boats  and 
landed  at  the  custom-house,  and  fell  into  the  hands 
of  the  legalized  plunderers,  who  made  an  attack 
upon  our  baggage  and  demanded  our  passports, 
simply  to  obtain  backsheesh  for  themselves. 

"Not  to  show  'em  passport,"  says  Abd-el-Atti, 
who  wastes  no  affection  on  the  Turks;  "tiefs,  all 
of  clem ;  you  be  six  months,  not  so  ?  in  him  domin- 
ion, come  now  from  Jaffa;  I  tell  him  if  the  kin'  of 
Constantinople  want  us,  he  find  us  at  the  hotel." 

The  hotel  Bellevue,  which  looks  upon  the  sea 
and  hears  always  the  waves  dashing  upon  the  worn 
and  jagged  rocks,  was  overflowed  by  one  of  those 
swarms,  which  are  the  nuisance  of  independent 
travelers,  known  as  a  "Cook's  Party,"  excellent 
people  individually  no  doubt,  but  monopolizing 
hotels  and  steamboats,  and  driving  everybody  else 
into  obscurity  by  reason  of  their  numbers  and  com- 
pact organization.  We  passed  yesterday  one  of 
the  places  on  the  coast  where  Jonah  is  said  to  have 
left  the  whale;  it  is  suspected  —  though  without 
any  contemporary  authority  —  that  he  was  in  a 
Cook's  Party  of  his  day,  and  left  it  in  disgust  for 
this  private  conveyance. 

Our  first  care  in  Beyront  was  to  secure  our  pas- 
sage to  Damascus.  There  is  a  carriage-road  over 


236  BEYROUT 

the  Lebanons,  constructed,  owned,  and  managed 
by  a  French  company ;  it  is  the  only  road  in  Syria 
practicable  for  wheels,  but  it  is  one  of  the  best  in 
the  world ;  I  suppose  we  shall  celebrate  our  second 
centennial  before  we  have  one  to  compare  with  it 
in  the  United  States.  The  company  has  the  mo- 
nopoly of  all  the  traffic  over  it,  forwarding  freight 
in  its  endless  trains  of  wagons,  and  dispatching  a 
diligence  each  way  daily,  and  a  night  mail.  We 
went  to  the  office  to  secure  seats  in  the  diligence. 

"They  are  all  taken,"  said  the  official. 

"Then  we  would  like  seats  for  the  day  after 
to-morrow." 

"They  are  taken,  and  for  the  day  after  that  — 
for  a  week." 

"Then  we  must  go  in  a  private  carriage." 

"At  present  we  have  none.  The  two  belonging 
to  the  company  are  at  Damascus." 

"Then  we  will  hire 'one  in  the  city." 

"That  is  not  permitted;  no  private  carriage  is 
allowed  to  go  over  the  road  farther  than  five 
kilometres  outside  of  Beyrout." 

"  So  you  will  neither  take  us  yourselves  nor  let 
any  one  else?" 

"  Pardon ;  when  the  carriage  comes  from  Damas- 
cus, you  shall  have  the  first  chance." 

Fortunately  one  of  the  carriages  arrived  that 
night,  and  the  next  morning  at  nine  o'clock  we 
were  en  route.  The  diligence  left  at  four  A.  M., 
and  makes  the  trip  in  thirteen  hours ;  we  were  to 
break  the  journey  at  Stoura  and  diverge  to  Ba'al- 
bek.  The  carriage  was  a  short  omnibus,  with  seats 


A    SYRIAN    SUMMER   RESORT  237 

inside  for  four,  a  broad  seat  in  front,  and  a  deck 
for  the  baggage,  painted  a  royal  yellow;  three 
horses  were  harnessed  to  it  abreast,  —  one  in  the 
shafts  and  one  on  each  side.  As  the  horses  were 
to  be  changed  at  short  stages,  we  went  forward  at 
a  swinging  pace,  rattling  out  of  the  city  and  com- 
manding as  much  respect  as  if  we  had  been  the 
diligence  itself  with  its  six  horses,  three  abreast, 
and  all  its  haughty  passengers. 

We  leave  the  promontory  of  Beyrout,  dip  into 
a  long  depression,  and  then  begin  to  ascend  the 
Lebanon.  The  road  is  hard,  smooth,  white;  the 
soil  on  either  side  is  red;  the  country  is  exceed- 
ingly rich ;  we  pass  villas,  extensive  plantations  of 
figs,  and  great  forests  of  the  mulberry ;  for  the  silk 
culture  is  the  chief  industry,  and  small  factories 
of  the  famous  Syrian  silks  are  scattered  here  and 
there.  As  the  road  winds  upward,  we  find  the 
hillsides  are  terraced  and  luxuriant  with  fig-trees 
and  grapevines,  —  the  latter  flourishing,  in  fact, 
to  the  very  top  of  the  mountains,  say  5200  feet 
above  the  blue  Mediterranean,  which  sparkles 
below  us.  Into  these  hills  the  people  of  Beyrout 
come  to  pass  the  heated  months  of  summer,  living 
in  little  villas  which  are  embowered  in  foliage  all 
along  these  lovely  slopes.  We  encounter  a  new 
sort  of  house ;  it  is  one  story  high,  built  of  lime- 
stone in  square  blocks  and  without  mortar,  having 
a  flat  roof  covered  with  stones  and  soil,  —  a  very 
primitive  construction,  but  universal  here.  Some- 
times the  building  is  in  two  parts,  like  a  double 
log-cabin,  but  the  opening  between  the  two  is 


238  OVER   THE   LEBANON 

always  arched ;  so  much  for  art ;  but  otherwise  the 
house,  without  windows,  or  with  slits  only,  looks 
like  a  section  of  stone-wall. 

As  we  rise,  we  begin  to  get  glimpses  of  the 
snowy  peaks  which  make  a  sharp  contrast  with  the 
ravishing  view  behind  us,  —  the  terraced  gorges, 
the  profound  ravines,  the  vineyards,  gardens,  and 
orchards,  the  blue  sea,  and  the  white  road  winding 
back  through  all  like  a  ribbon.  As  we  look  down, 
the  limestone  walls  of  the  terraces  are  concealed, 
and  all  the  white  cliffs  are  hidden  by  the  ample 
verdure.  Entering  farther  into  the  mountains,  and 
ascending  through  the  grim  Wady  Hammana,  we 
have  the  considerable  village  of  that  name  below 
us  on  the  left,  lying  at  the  bottom  of  a  vast  and 
ash-colored  mountain  basin,  like  a  gray  heap  of 
cinders  on  the  edge  of  a  crater  broken  away  at  one 
side.  We  look  at  it  with  interest,  for  there  La- 
martine  once  lived  for  some  months  in  as  sentimen- 
tal a  seclusion  as  one  could  wish.  A  little  higher 
up  we  came  to  snow,  great  drifts  of  it  by  the  road- 
side, —  a  phenomenon  entirely  beyond  the  com- 
prehension of  Abdallah,  who  has  never  seen  sand 
so  cold  as  this,  which,  nevertheless,  melts  in  his 
hands.  After  encountering  the  snow,  we  drive 
into  a  cold  cloud,  which  seems  much  of  the  time  to 
hang  on  the  top  of  Lebanon,  and  have  a  touch  of 
real  winter,  —  a  disagreeable  experience  which  we 
had  hoped  to  eliminate  from  this  year;  snow  is 
only  tolerable  when  seen  at  a  great  distance,  as  the 
background  in  a  summer  landscape ;  near  at  hand 
it  congeals  the  human  spirits. 


A   GLOWING   PICTURE  239 

When  we  were  over  the  summit  and  had 
emerged  from  the  thick  cloud,  suddenly  a  surprise 
greeted  us.  Opposite  was  the  range  of  Anti- 
Lebanon  ;  two  thousand  feet  below  us,  the  broad 
plain,  which  had  not  now  the  appearance  of  land, 
but  of  some  painted  scene,  —  a  singularity  which 
is  partially  explained  by  the  red  color  of  the  soil. 
But,  altogether,  it  presented  the  most  bewilder- 
ing mass  of  color;  if  the  valley  had  been  strewn 
with  watered  silks  over  a  carpet  of  Persian  rugs, 
the  effect  might  have  been  the  same.  There  were 
patches  and  strips  of  green  and  of  brown,  dashes 
of  red,  blotches  of  burnt-umber  and  sienna,  alter- 
nations of  ploughed  field  and  young  grain,  and  the 
whole,  under  the  passing  clouds,  took  the  sheen  of 
the  opal.  The  hard,  shining  road  lay  down  the 
mountain-side  in  long  loops,  in  ox-bows,  in  curves 
ever  graceful,  like  a  long  piece  of  white  tape  flung 
by  chance  from  the  summit  to  the  valley.  We 
dashed  down  it  at  a  great  speed,  winding  back- 
wards and  forwards  on  the  mountain-side,  and 
continually  shifting  our  point  of  view  of  the  glow- 
ing picture. 

At  the  little  post-station  of  Stoura,  we  left  the 
Damascus  road  and  struck  north  for  an  hour  to- 
wards Ba'albek,  over  a  tolerable  carriage-road. 
But  the  road  ceased  at  Mu'allakah;  beyond  that, 
a  horseback  journey  of  six  or  seven  hours,  there  is 
a  road-bed  to  Ba'albek,  stoned  a  part  of  the  way, 
and  intended  to  be  passable  some  day.  Mu'al- 
lakah lies  on  the  plain  at  the  opening  of  the  wild 
gorge  of  the  Berduuy,  a  lively  torrent  which  dance!- 


240  OVER   THE   LEBANON 

down  to  join  the  Litany,  through  the  verdure  of 
fruit-trees  and  slender  poplars.  Over  a  mile  up 
the  glen,  in  the  bosom  of  the  mountains,  is  the 
town  of  Zahleh,  the  largest  in  the  Lebanon ;  and 
there  we  purposed  to  pass  the  night,  having  been 
commended  to  the  hospitality  of  the  missionaries 
there  by  Dr.  Jessup  of  Beyrout. 

Our  halted  establishment  drew  a  crowd  of  curi- 
ous spectators  about  it,  mostly  women  and  chil- 
dren, who  had  probably  never  seen  a  carriage  be- 
fore; they  examined  us  and  commented  upon  us 
with  perfect  freedom,  but  that  was  the  extent  of 
their  hospitality,  not  one  of  them  was  willing  to 
earn  a  para  by  carrying  our  baggage  to  Zahleh; 
and  we  started  up  the  hill,  leaving  the  dragoman 
in  an  animated  quarrel  with  the  entire  population, 
who,  in  turn,  resented  his  comments  upon  their 
want  of  religion  and  good  manners. 

Climbing  up  a  stony  hill,  threading  gullies  and 
ravines,  and  finally  rough  streets,  we  came  into 
the  amphitheatre  in  the  hills  which  inclose  Zahleh. 
The  town  is  unique  in  its  construction.  Imagine 
innumerable  small  whitewashed  wooden  houses, 
rising  in  concentric  circles,  one  above  the  other, 
on  the  slopes  of  the  basin,  like  the  chairs  on  the 
terraces  of  a  Roman  circus.  The  town  is  mostly 
new,  for  the  Druses  captured  it  and  burned  it  in 
1860,  and  reminds  one  of  a  New  England  factory 
village.  Its  situation  is  a  stony,  ragged  basin, 
three  thousand  feet  above  the  sea ;  the  tops  of  the 
hills  behind  it  were  still  covered  with  snow,  and 
we  could  easily  fancy  that  we  were  in  Switzerland. 


THE   AMERICAN    MISSIONARIES  241 

The  ten  or  twelve  thousand  inhabitants  are  nearly 
all  Maronites,  a  sect  of  Christians  whom  we  should 
call  Greeks,  but  who  are  in  communion  with  the 
Latin  Church ;  a  people  ignorant  and  superstitious, 
governed  by  their  priests,  occasionally  turbulent, 
and  always  on  the  point  of  open  rupture  with  the 
mysterious  and  subtle  Druses.  Having  the  name 
of  Christians  and  few  of  the  qualities,  they  are 
most  unpromising  subjects  of  missionary  labor. 
Yet  the  mission  here  makes  progress  and  converts, 
and  we  were  glad  to  see  that  the  American  mis- 
sionaries were  universally  respected. 

Fortunately  the  American  name  and  Christianity 
are  exceedingly  well  represented  in  Northern  Syria 
by  gentlemen  who  unite  a  thorough  and  varied 
scholarship  with  Christian  simplicity,  energy,  and 
enthusiasm.  At  first  it  seems  hard  that  so  much 
talent  and  culture  should  be  hidden  away  in  such  a 
place  as  Zahleh,  and  we  were  inclined  to  lament  a 
lot  so  far  removed  from  the  living  sympathies  of 
the  world.  It  seems,  indeed,  almost  hopeless  to 
make  any  impression  on  this  antique  and  conceited 
mass  of  superstition.  But  if  Syria  is  to  be  regen- 
erated, and  to  be  ever  the  home  of  an  industrious, 
clean,  and  moral  people,  in  sympathy  with  the 
enlightened  world,  the  change  is  to  be  made  by 
exhibiting  to  the  people  a  higher  type  of  Christian- 
ity than  they  have  known  hitherto,  — a  Christian- 
ity that  reforms  manners,  and  betters  the  social 
condition,  and  adds  a  new  interest  to  life  by  lift- 
ing it  to  a  higher  plane;  physical  conditions  must 
visibly  improve  under  it.  It  is  not  enough  in  a 


242  OVER    THE    LEBANON 

village  like  this  of  Zahleh,  for  instance,  to  set  up 
a  new  form  of  Christian  worship,  and  let  it  drone 
on  in  a  sleepy  fashion,  however  devout  and  cir- 
cumspect. It  needs  men  of  talent,  scientific  at- 
tainment, practical  sagacity,  who  shall  make  the 
Christian  name  respected  by  superior  qualities,  as 
well  as  by  devout  lives.  They  must  show  a  better 
style  of  living,  more  thrift  and  comfort,  than  that 
which  prevails  here.  The  people  will  by  and  by 
see  a  logical  connection  between  a  well-ordered 
house  and  garden,  a  farm  scientifically  cultivated, 
a  prosperous  factory,  the  profitableness  of  hon- 
esty and  industry,  and  the  superior  civilization 
of  our  Western  Christianity.  You  can  already 
see  the  influence  in  Syria  of  the  accomplished 
scholars,  skillful  physicians  and  surgeons,  men 
versed  in  the  sciences,  in  botany  and  geology,  who 
are  able  to  understand  the  resources  of  the  coun- 
try, who  are  supported  there,  but  not  liberally 
enough  supported,  by  the  Christians  of  America. 


XI 
BA'ALBEK 

E  were  entertained  at  the  house  of  the 
Rev.  Mr.  Wood,  who  accompanied  us 
the  next  day  to  Ba'albek,  his  mission 
territory  including  that  ancient  seat  of 
splendid  paganism.  Some  sort  of  religious  fete  in 
the  neighborhood  had  absorbed  the  best  saddle- 
beasts,  and  we  were  indifferently  mounted  on  the 
refuse  of  donkeys  and  horses,  Abdallah,  our  most 
shining  possession,  riding,  as  usual,  on  the  top  of 
a  pile  of  baggage.  The  inhabitants  were  very 
civil  as  we  passed  along ;  we  did  not  know  whether 
to  attribute  it  to  the  influence  of  the  missionaries 
or  to  the  rarity  of  travelers,  but  the  word  "back- 
sheesh'"  we  heard  not  once  in  Zahleh. 

After  we  had  emerged  from  Mu'allakah  upon 
the  open  plain,  we  passed  on  our  left  hand  the 
Moslem  village  of  Kerah  Nun,  which  is  distin- 
guished as  the  burial-place  of  the  prophet  Noah ; 
but  we  contented  ourselves  with  a  sight  of  the 
dome.  The  mariner  lies  there  in  a  grave  seventy 
feet  long,  or  seventy  yards,  some  scoffers  say ;  but 
this,  whatever  it  is,  is  not  the  measure  of  the  patri- 
arch. The  grave  proved  too  short,  and  Noah  is 


244  BA'ALBEK 

buried  with  his  knees  bent,  and  his  feet  extending 
downward  in  the  ground. 

The  plain  of  Buka'a  is  some  ninety  miles  long, 
and  in  this  portion  of  it  about  ten  miles  broad;  it 
is  well  watered,  and  though  the  red  soil  is  stuffed 
with  small  stones,  it  is  very  fertile,  and  would 
yield  abundantly  if  cultivated;  but  it  is  mostly 
an  abandoned  waste  of  weeds.  The  ground  rises 
gradually  all  the  way  to  Ba'albek,  starting  from  an 
elevation  of  three  thousand  feet;  the  plain  is  roll- 
ing, and  the  streams  which  rush  down  from  the 
near  mountains  are  very  swift.  Nothing  could  be 
lovelier  than  the  snowy  ranges  of  mountains  on 
either  hand,  in  contrast  with  the  browns  and  reds 
of  the  slopes,  —  like  our  own  autumn  foliage,  — 
and  the  green  and  brown  plain,  now  sprinkled 
with  wild-flowers  of  many  varieties. 

The  sky  was  covered  with  clouds,  great  masses 
floating  about;  the  wind  from  the  hills  was  cold, 
and  at  length  drove  us  to  our  wraps ;  then  a  fine 
rain  ensued,  but  it  did  not  last  long,  for  the  rainy 
season  was  over.  We  crossed  the  plain  diago- 
nally, and  lunched  at  a  little  khan,  half  house  and 
half  stable,  raised  above  a  stream,  with  a  group 
of  young  poplars  in  front.  We  sat  on  a  raised 
divan  in  the  covered  court,  and  looked  out  through 
the  arched  doorway  over  a  lovely  expanse  of  plain 
and  hills.  It  was  difficult  to  tell  which  part  of 
the  house  was  devoted  to  the  stable  and  which  to 
the  family;  from  the  door  of  the  room  which  I 
selected  as  the  neatest  came  the  braying  of  a  don- 
key. The  landlord  and  his  wife,  a  young  woman 


THE    METAWILEH  245 

and  rather  pretty,  who  had  a  baby  in  her  arms, 
furnished  pipes  and  tobacco,  and  the  travelers  or 
idlers  —  they  are  one  —  sat  on  the  ground  smoking 
narghilehs.  A  squad  of  ruffianly  Metawileh,  a 
sect  of  Moslems  who  follow  the  Koran  strictly, 
and  reject  the  traditions,  —  perhaps  like  those  who 
call  themselves  Bible  Christians  in  distinction  from 
theological  Christians,  —  came  from  the  field,  de- 
posited their  ploughs,  which  they  carried  on  their 
shoulders,  on  the  platform  outside,  and,  seating 
themselves  in  a  row  in  the  khan,  looked  at  us  stol- 
idly. And  we,  having  the  opportunity  of  saying 
so,  looked  at  them  intelligently. 

We  went  on  obliquely  across  the  plain,  rising 
a  little  through  a  region  rich,  but  only  half  culti- 
vated, crossing  streams  and  floundering  in  mud- 
holes  for  three  hours,  on  a  walk,  the  wind  grow- 
ing stronger  from  the  snow  mountains,  and  the 
col.l  becoming  almost  unendurable.  It  was  in  vain 
tint  Abd-el-Atti  spun  hour  after  hour  an  Arab 
romance ;  not  even  the  warm  colors  of  the  Oriental 
imagination  could  soften  the  piteous  blast.  At 
length,  when  patience  was  nearly  gone,  in  a 
depression  in  the  plain,  close  to  the  foot-hills  of 
Anti-Lebanon,  behold  the  great  Ba'albek,  that  is  to 
say,  a  Moslem  village  of  three  thousand  to  four 
thousand  inhabitants,  fairly  clean  and  sightly,  and 
the  ruins  just  on  the  edge  of  it,  the  six  well-known 
gigantic  Corinthian  pillars  standing  out  against  the 
gray  sky.  Never  was  sight  more  welcome. 

Ba'albek,  like  Zahleh,  has  no  inn,  and  we  lodged 
in  a  private  house  near  the  ruins.  The  house  was 


246  BA'ALBEK 

one  story ;  it  consisted  of  four  large  rooms  in  a  row, 
looking  upon  the  stone-wall  inclosure,  each  with 
its  door,  and  with  no  communication  between  them. 
The  kitchen  was  in  a  separate  building.  These 
rooms  had  high  ceilings  of  beams  supporting  the 
flat  roof,  windows  with  shutters  but  without  glass, 
divans  along  one  side,  and  in  one  corner  a  fireplace 
and  chimney.  Each  room  had  a  niche  extending 
from  the  floor  almost  to  the  ceiling,  in  which  the 
beds  are  piled  in  the  daytime ;  at  night  they  are 
made  up  on  the  divans  or  on  the  floor.  This  is 
the  common  pattern  of  a  Syrian  house,  and  when 
we  got  a  fire  blazing  in  the  big  chimney -place  and 
began  to  thaw  out  our  stiff  limbs,  and  Abd-el- 
Atti  brought  in  something  from  the  kitchen  that 
was  hot  and  red  in  color  and  may  have  had  spice 
on  the  top  of  it,  we  found  this  the  most  comfort- 
able residence  in  the  world. 

It  is  the  business  of  a  dragoman  to  produce  the 
improbable  in  impossible  places.  Abd-el-Atti 
rubbed  his  lamp  and  converted  this  establishment 
into  a  tolerable  inn,  with  a  prolific  kitchen  and  an 
abundant  table.  While  he  was  performing  this 
revolution  we  went  to  see  the  ruins,  the  most  noble 
portions  of  which  have  survived  the  religion  and 
almost  the  memory  of  the  builders. 

The  remains  of  the  temples  of  Ba'albek,  or  Hie- 
ropolis,  are  only  elevated  as  they  stand  upon  an 
artificial  platform ;  they  are  in  the  depression  of 
the  valley,  and  in  fact  a  considerable  stream  flows 
all  about  the  walls  and  penetrates  the  subterranean 
passages.  This  water  comes  from  a  fountain  which 


RUINS   OK   THE    TEMPLE   OF    BAAL 


RELICS    OF    THE   PIKENICIANS  247 

bursts  out  of  the  Anti -Lebanon  hills  about  half  a 
mile  above  Ba'albek,  in  an  immeTise  volume,  falls 
into  a  great  basin,  and  flows  away  in  a  small  river. 
These  instantaneously  born  rivers  are  a  peculiarity 
of  Syria;  and  they  often  disappear  as  suddenly  as 
they  come.  The  water  of  this  Ba'albek  fountain  is 
cold,  pure,  and  sweet;  it  deserves  to  be  called  a 
"beverage,"  and  is,  so  far  as  nay  experience  goes, 
the  most  agreeable  water  in  the  world.  The  Mos- 
lems have  a  proverb  which  expresses  its  unique 
worth:  "The  water  of  Ba'albek  never  leaves  its 
home."  It  rushes  past  the  village  almost  a  river 
in  size,  and  then  disappears  in  the  plain  below  as 
suddenly  as  it  came  to  the  light  above. 

We  made  our  way  across  the  stream  and  along 
aqueducts  and  over  heaps  of  shattered  walls  and 
columns  to  the  west  end  of  the  group  of  ruins. 
This  end  is  defended  by  a  battlemented  wall  some 
fifty  feet  high,  which  was  built  by  the  Saracens 
out  of  incongruous  materials  from  older  construc- 
tions. The  northeast  corner  of  this  new  wall  rests 
upon  the  ancient  Phoenician  wall,  which  sustained 
the  original  platform  of  the  sacred  buildings ;  and 
at  this  corner  are  found  the  three  famous  stones 
which  at  one  time  gave  a  name,  "The  Three- 
Stoned,"  to  the  great  temple.  As  I  do  not  intend 
to  enter  into  the  details  of  these  often  described 
ruins,  I  will  say  here,  that  this  ancient  Phoenician 
wall  appears  on  the  north  side  of  the  platform 
detached,  showing  that  the  most  ancient  temple 
occupied  a  larger  area  than  the  Greek  and  Roman 
buildings. 


248  BA'ALBEK 

There  are  many  stones  in  the  old  platform  wall 
which  are  thirty  feet  long;  but  the  three  large 
ones,  which  are  elevated  twenty  feet  above  the 
ground,  and  are  in  a  line,  are  respectively  64  feet 
long,  63  feet  8  inches,  and  63  feet,  and  about  13 
feet  in  height  and  in  depth.  When  I  measured 
the  first  stone,  I  made  it  128  feet  long,  which  I 
knew  was  an  error,  but  it  was  only  by  careful 
inspection  that  I  discovered  the  joint  of  the  two 
stones  which  I  had  taken  for  one.  I  thought  this 
a  practical  test  of  the  close  fit  of  these  blocks, 
which,  laid  without  mortar,  come  together  as  if  the 
ends  had  been  polished.  A  stone  larger  than 
either  of  these  lies  in  the  neighboring  quarry,  hewn 
out  but  not  detached. 

These  massive  constructions,  when  first  rediscov- 
ered, were  the  subject  of  a  great  deal  of  wonder 
and  speculation,  and  were  referred  to  a  remote  and 
misty  if  not  fabulous  period.  I  believe  it  is  now 
agreed  that  they  were  the  work  of  the  Phrenicians, 
or  Canaanites,  and  that  they  are  to  be  referred  to 
a  period  subsequent  to  the  conquest  of  Egypt,  or  at 
least  of  the  Delta  of  Egypt,  by  the  Hittites,  when 
the  Egyptian  influence  was  felt  in  Syria;  and  that 
this  Temple  of  the  Sun  was  at  least  suggested,  as 
well  as  the  worship  of  the  Sun  god  here,  by  the 
Temple  of  the  Sun  at  Heliopolis  on  the  Nile.  There 
is,  to  be  sure,  no  record  of  the  great  city  of  Ba'al- 
bek,  but  it  may  safely  be  referred  to  the  period  of 
the  greatest  prosperity  of  the  Phrenician  nation. 

Much  as  we  had  read  of  the  splendor  of  these 
ruins,  and  familiar  as  we  were  with  photographs  of 


SPLENDOR   OF   THE    RUINS  249 

them,  we  were  struck  with  surprise  when  we  climbed 
up  into  the  great  court,  that  is,  to  the  platform 
of  the  temples.  The  platform  extends  over  eight 
hundred  feet  from  east  to  west,  an  elevated  theatre 
for  the  display  of  some  of  the  richest  architecture 
in  the  world.  The  general  view  is  broad,  impres- 
sive, inspiring  beyond  anything  else  in  Egypt  or 
Syria ;  and  when  we  look  at  details,  the  ruins  charm 
us  with  their  beauty.  Round  three  sides  of  the 
great  court  runs  a  wall,  the  interior  of  which,  re- 
cessed and  niched,  was  once  adorned  with  the  most 
elaborate  carving  in  designs  more  graceful  than 
you  would  suppose  stone  could  lend  itself  to,  with 
a  frieze  of  garlands  of  vines,  flowers,  and  fruits. 
Of  the  so-called  great  Temple  of  Baal  at  the  west 
end  of  the  platform,  only  six  splendid  Corinthian 
columns  remain.  The  so-called  Temple  of  the  Sun 
or  Jupiter,  to  the  south  of  the  other  and  on  a  lower 
level,  larger  than  the  Parthenon,  exists  still  in 
nearly  its  original  form,  although  some  of  the  ex- 
terior columns  have  fallen,  and  time  and  the  art- 
hating  Moslems  have  defaced  some  of  its  finest 
sculpture.  The  ceiling  between  the  outer  row  of 
columns  and  the  wall  of  this  temple  is,  or  was,  one 
of  the  most  exquisite  pieces  of  stone -carving  ever 
executed;  the  figures  carved  in  the  medallions 
seem  to  have  anticipated  the  Gothic  genius,  and 
the  exquisite  patterns  in  stone  to  have  suggested 
the  subsequent  Saracenic  invention.  The  compos- 
ite capitals  of  the  columns  offer  an  endless  study : 
stone  roses  stand  out  upon  their  stems,  fruit  and 
flowers  hang  and  bloom  in  the  freedom  of  nature; 


250  BA'ALBEK 

the  carving  is  all  bold  and  spirited,  and  the  inven- 
tion endless.  This  is  no  doubt  work  of  the  Roman 
period  after  the  Christian  era,  but  it  is  pervaded 
by  Greek  feeling,  and  would  seem  to  have  been 
executed  by  Greek  artists. 

In  the  centre  of  the  great  court  (there  is  a  small 
six-sided  court  to  the  east  of  the  larger  one,  which 
was  once  approached  by  a  great  flight  of  steps  from 
below)  are  remains  of  a  Christian  basilica,  referred 
to  the  reign  of  Theodosius.  Underneath  the  plat- 
form are  enormous  vaults,  which  may  have  served 
the  successive  occupants  for  store-houses.  The 
Saracens  converted  this  position  into  a  fortress, 
and  this  military  impress  the  ruins  still  bear.  We 
have  therefore  four  ages  in  these  ruins :  the  Phoeni- 
cian, the  Greek  and  Roman,  the  Christian,  and  the 
Saracenic.  The  remains  of  the  first  are  most  en- 
during. The  old  builders  had  no  other  method 
of  perpetuating  their  memory  except  by  these 
cyclopean  constructions. 

We  saw  the  sunset  on  Ba'albek.  The  clouds 
broke  away  and  lay  in  great  rosy  masses  over  Leb- 
anon ;  the  white  snow  ridge  for  forty  miles  spar- 
kled under  them.  The  peak  of  Lebanon,  over 
ten  thousand  feet  above  us,  was  revealed  in  all  its 
purity.  There  was  a  red  light  on  the  columns 
and  on  the  walls,  and  the  hills  of  Anti-Lebanon, 
red  as  a  dull  garnet,  were  speckled  with  snow 
patches.  The  imagination  could  conceive  nothing 
more  beautiful  than  the  rose-color  of  the  ruins, 
the  flaming  sky,  and  the  immaculate  snow  peaks, 
apparently  so  close  to  us. 


THE   RUINS    BY   MOONLIGHT  251 

On  our  return  we  stopped  at  the  beautiful  cir- 
cular temple  of  Venus,  which  would  be  a  wonder 
in  any  other  neighborhood.  Dinner  awaited  us, 
and  was  marked  by  only  one  novelty,  —  what  we 
at  first  took  to  be  brown  napkins,  fantastically 
folded  and  laid  at  each  plate,  a  touch  of  elegance 
for  which  we  were  not  prepared.  But  the  napkins 
proved  to  be  bread.  It  is  made  of  coarse  dai'k 
wheat,  baked  in  circular  cakes  as  thin  as  brown 
paper,  and  when  folded  its  resemblance  to  a  nap- 
kin is  complete.  We  found  it  tolerably  palatable, 
if  one  could  get  rid  of  the  notion  that  he  was  eat- 
ing a  limp  rag.  The  people  had  been  advertised 
of  our  arrival,  and  men,  women,  and  boys  swarmed 
about  us  to  sell  copper  coins ;  most  of  them  Roman, 
which  they  find  in  the  ruins.  Few  are  found  of 
the  Greeks ;  the  Romans  literally  sowed  the  ground 
with  copper  money  wherever  they  went  in  the  Ori- 
ent. The  inhabitants  are  Moslems,  and  rather 
decent  in  appearance,  and  the  women  incline  to 
good  looks,  though  not  so  modest  in  dress  as  Mos- 
lem women  usually  are;  they  are  all  persistent 
beggars,  and  bring  babies  in  their  arms,  borrow- 
ing for  that  purpose  all  the  infants  in  the  neigh- 
borhood, to  incite  us  to  charity. 

We  yielded  to  the  average  sentiment  of  Christ- 
endom, and  sallied  out  in  the  cold  night  to  see  the 
ruins  under  the  light  of  a  full  moon;  one  of  the 
party  going  simply  that  he  might  avoid  the  re- 
proach of  other  travelers,  "  It  is  a  pity  you  did  not 
see  Ba'albek  by  moonlight."  And  it  must  be  con- 
fessed that  these  ruins  stand  the  dim  lijjht  of  the 


252  BA'ALBEK 

moon  better  than  most  ruins ;  they  are  so  broad  and 
distinct  that  they  show  themselves  even  in  this  dis- 
advantage, which  those  of  Karnak  do  not.  The 

t>     7 

six  isolated  columns  seemed  to  float  in  the  sky; 
between  them,  snowy  Lebanon  showed  itself. 

The  next  morning  was  clear  and  sparkling;  the 
sky  was  almost  as  blue  as  it  is  in  Nubia.  We 
were  awakened  by  the  drumming  of  a  Moslem 
procession.  It  was  the  great  annual  fete  day, 
upon  which  was  to  be  performed  the  miracle  of 
riding  over  the  bodies  of  the  devout.  The  cere- 
mony took  place  a  couple  of  miles  away  upon  the 
hill,  and  we  saw  on  all  the  paths  leading  thither 
files  of  men  and  women  in  white  garments.  The 
sheykh,  mounted  on  horseback,  rides  over  the 
prostrate  bodies  of  all  who  throw  themselves  be- 
fore him,  and  the  number  includes  young  men  as 
well  as  darwishes.  As  they  lie  packed  close  to- 
gether and  the  horse  treads  upon  their  spinal  col- 
umns, their  escape  from  death  is  called  miracu- 
lous. The  Christians  tried  the  experiment  here  a 
year  or  two  ago,  several  young  fellows  submitting 
to  let  a  horseman  trample  over  them,  in  order  to 
show  the  Moslems  that  they  also  possessed  a  reli- 
gion which  could  stand  horses'  hoofs. 

The  ruins,  under  the  intense  blue  sky,  and  in 
the  splendid  sunlight,  were  more  impressive  than 
in  the  dull  gray  of  the  day  before,  or  even  in  the 
rosy  sunset ;  their  imperial  dignity  is  not  impaired 
by  the  excessive  wealth  of  ornamentation.  When 
upon  this  platform  there  stood  fifty-eight  of  these 
noble  columns,  instead  of  six,  conspicuous  from 


A   MARKED    CONTRAST  253 

afar,  and  the  sunlight  poured  into  this  superb 
court,  adorned  by  the  genius  of  Athens  and  the 
wealth  of  Rome,  this  must  have  been  one  of  the 
most  resplendent  temples  in  existence,  rivaling 
the  group  upon  the  Acropolis  itself.  Nothing 
more  marks  the  contrast  between  the  religions  of 
the  Greeks  and  Romans  and  of  the  Egyptians,  or 
rather  between  the  genius  of  the  two  civilizations, 
than  their  treatment  of  sacred  edifices.  And  it  is 
all  the  more  to  be  noted,  because  the  more  modern 
nations  accepted  without  reserve  any  god  or  object 
of  veneration  or  mystery  in  the  Egyptian  pantheon. 
The  Roman  occupants  of  the  temple  of  Phil*  sacri- 
ficed without  scruple  upon  the  altars  of  Osiris,  and 
the  voluptuous  Graeco-Romans  of  Pompeii  built  a 
temple  to  Isis..  Yet  al.vays  and  everywhere  the 
Grecians  and  the  Romans  sought  conspicuous  situa- 
tions for  the  temples  of  the  gods;  they  felt,  as  did 
our  Pilgrim  Fathers,  who  planted  their  meeting- 
houses on  the  windiest  hills  of  New  England,  that 
the  deity  was  most  honored  when  the  house  of  his 
worship  was  most  visible  to  men;  but  the  Egyp- 
tians, on  the  contrary,  buried  the  magnificence  of 
their  temples  within  wall  around  wall,  and  permit- 
ted not  a  hint  of  their  splendor  to  the  world  out- 
side. It  is  worth  while  to  notice  also  that  the  As- 
syrians did  not  share  the  contemporary  reticence 
of  the  Egyptians,  but  built  their  altars  and  tem- 
ples high  above  the  plain  in  pyramidal  stages;  and 
if  we  may  judge  by  this  platform  at  Ba'albek,  the 
Phoenicians  did  not  imitate  the  exclusive  spirit  of 
the  Pharaouic  worshipers. 


254  BA'ALBEK 

We  lingered,  called  again  and  again  by  the  im- 
patient dragoman,  in  this  fascinating  spot,  amid 
the  visible  monuments  of  so  many  great  races, 
bearing  the  marks  of  so  many  religious  revolutions, 
and  turned  away  with  slow  and  reluctant  steps,  as 
those  who  abandon  an  illusion  or  have  not  yet 
thought  out  some  suggestion  of  the  imagination. 
We  turned  also  with  reluctance  from  a  real  illusion 
of  the  senses.  In  the  clear  atmosphere  the  ridge 
of  Lebanon  was  startlingly  near  to  us;  the  snow 
summit  appeared  to  overhang  Ba'albek  as  Vesuvius 
does  Pompeii;  and  yet  it  is  half  a  day's  journey 
across  the  plain  to  the  base  of  the  mountain,  and 
a  whole  day's  journey  from  these  ruins  to  the  sum- 
mit. But  although  this  illusion  of  distance  did 
not  continue  as  we  rode  down  the  valley,  we  had 
on  either  hand  the  snow  ranges  all  day,  making  by 
contrast  with  the  brilliant  colors  of  the  plain  a 
lovely  picture. 


XII 


HE  station  at  Stoura  is  a  big  stable  and 
a  dirty  little  inn,  which  has  the  kitchen 
in  one  shanty,  the  dining-room  in  an- 
other, and  the  beds  in  a  third ;  a  swift 
mountain  stream  runs  behind  it,  and  a  grove  of 
poplars  on  the  banks  moans  and  rustles  in  the  wind 
that  draws  down  the  Lebanon  gorge.  It  was 
after  dark  when  we  arrived,  but  whether  our  com- 
ing put  the  establishment  into  a  fluster,  I  doubt ; 
it  seems  to  be  in  a  chronic  state  of  excitement. 
The  inn  was  kept  by  Italians,  who  have  a  genius 
for  this  sort  of  hotel;  the  landlord  was  Andrea, 
but  I  suspect  the  real  authority  resided  in  his 
plump,  bright,  vivacious  wife.  They  had  an  heir, 
however,  a  boy  of  eight,  who  proved  to  be  the  ty- 
rant of  the  house  when  he  appeared  upon  the  scene. 
The  servants  were  a  tall,  slender  Syrian  girl,  an 
active  and  irresponsible  boy,  and  a  dark-eyed  little 
maid,  in  the  limp  and  dirty  single  garment  which 
orphans  always  wear  on  the  stage,  and  who  in 
fact  was  an  orphan,  and  appeared  to  take  the  full 
benefit  of  her  neglected  and  jolly  life.  The 
whole  establishment  was  on  a  lark,  and  in  a  per- 


256  ON   THE   ROAD   TO   DAMASCUS 

petual  giggle,  and  communicated  its  overflowing 
good-humor  even  to  tired  travelers.  The  well- 
favored  little  wife,  who  exhibited  the  extremes  of 
fortune  in  a  diamond  ring  and  a  torn  and  drag- 
gled calico  gown,  sputtered  alternately  French  and 
Italian  like  a  magpie,  laughed  with  a  contagious 
merriment,  and  actually  made  the  cheerless  accom- 
modations she  offered  us  appear  desirable.  The 
whole  family  waited  on  us,  or  rather  kept  us  wait- 
ing on  them,  at  table,  bringing  us  a  dish  now  and 
then  as  if  its  production  were  a  joke,  talking  all 
the  while  among  themselves  in  Arabic,  and  appar- 
ently about  us,  and  laughing  at  their  own  observa- 
tions, until  we,  even,  came  to  conceive  ourselves 
as  a  party  in  a  most  comical  light ;  and  so  amus- 
ing did  we  grow  that  the  slim  girl  and  the  sorry 
orphan  were  forced  to  rush  into  a  corner  every  few 
minutes  and  laugh  it  out. 

I  spent  a  pleasant  hour  in  the  kitchen,  —  an 
isolated,  smoke-dried  room  with  an  earth  floor,  — 
endeavoring  to  warm  my  feet  at  the  little  fires  of 
charcoal  kindled  in  holes  on  top  of  a  bank  of  earth 
and  stone,  and  watching  the  pranks  of  this  merry 
and  industrious  family.  The  little  heir  amused 
himself  by  pounding  the  orphan,  kicking  the  shins 
of  the  boy,, and  dashing  water  in  the  face  of  the 
slim  girl,  —  treatment  which  the  servants  dared 
not  resent,  since  the  father  laughed  over  it  as  an 
exhibition  of  bravery  and  vivacity.  Fragrant 
steam  came  from  a  pot,  in  which  quail  were  stew- 
ing for  the  passengers  by  the  night  mail,  and  each 
person  who  appeared  in  the  kitchen,  in  turn,  gave 


AN   ENCHANTING   HOUSEHOLD  257 

this  pot  a  stir ;  the  lively  boy  pounded  coffee  in  a 
big  mortar,  put  charcoal  on  the  fire,  had  a  tussle 
with  the  heir,  threw  a  handspring,  doing  nothing 
a  minute  at  a  time ;  the  orphan  slid  in  with  a  bucket 
of  water,  slopping  it  in  all  directions ;  the  heir  set 
up  a  howl  and  kicked  his  father  because  he  was  not 
allowed  to  kick  the  orphan  any  more ;  the  little  wife 
came  in  like  a  breeze,  whisking  everybody  one  side, 
and  sympathized  with  dear  little  Robby,  whose 
cruel  and  ugly  papa  was  holding  the  love  from 
barking  his  father's  shins.  You  do  not  often  see 
a  family  that  enjoys  itself  so  much  as  this. 

It  was  late  next  morning  when  we  tore  ourselves 
from  this  enchanting  household,  and  went  at  a  good 
pace  over  the  fertile  plain,  straight  towards  Anti- 
Lebanon,  having  a  glimpse  of  the  snow  of  Mount 
Hermon,  —  a  long  ridge  peering  over  the  hills  to 
the  southeast,  and  crossing  in  turn  the  Litany  and 
the  deep  Anjar,  which  bursts  forth  from  a  single 
fountain  about  a  mile  to  the  north.  On  our  left 
we  saw  some  remains  of  what  was  once  a  capital 
city,  Chalcis,  of  unknown  origin,  but  an  old  city 
before  it  was  possessed  by  the  Ptolemies,  or  by 
Mark  Antony,  and  once  the  luxurious  residence  of 
the  Herod  family.  At  Medjel,  a  village  scattered 
at  the  foot  of  small  tcllx  rising  in  the  plain,  we 
turned  into  the  hills,  leaving  unvisited  a  conspicu- 
ous Roman  temple  on  a  peak  above  the  town .  The 
road  winds  gradually  up  a  wady.  As  we  left  the 
plain,  and  looked  back  across  it  to  Lebanon,  the 
colors  of  Buka'a  and  the  mountain  gave  us  a  new 
surprise;  they  were  brilliant  and  yet  soft,  as  gay 


258  ON    THE    ROAD    TO    DAMASCUS 

and  splendid  as  the  rocks  of  the  Yellowstone,  and 
yet  exquisitely  blended  as  in  a  Persian  rug. 

The  hill-country  was  almost  uninhabited ;  except 
the  stations  and  an  occasional  Bedaween  camp 
there  was  small  sign  of  occupation;  the  ground 
was  uncultivated ;  peasants  in  rags  were  grubbing 
up  the  roots  of  cedars  for  fuel.  We  met  Druses 
with  trains  of  mules,  Moslems  with  camels  and 
mules,  and  long  processions  of  white-topped  wag- 
ons,—  like  the  Western  "prairie  schooner," 
drawn  each  by  three  mules  tandem.  Thirty  and 
forty  of  these  freight  vehicles  travel  in  company, 
and  we  were  continually  meeting  or  passing  them ; 
their  number  is  an  indication  of  the  large  trade 
that  Damascus  has  with  Beyrout  and  the  Mediter- 
ranean. There  is  plenty  of  color  in  the  people  and 
in  their  costume.  We  were  told  that  we  could  dis- 
tinguish the  Druses  by  their  furtive  and  bad  coun- 
tenances; but  for  this  information  I  should  not 
have  seen  that  they  differed  much  from  the  Maro- 
nites;  but  I  endeavored  to  see  the  treacherous  vil- 
lain in  them.  I  have  noticed  in  Syria  that  the 
Catholic  travelers  have  a  good  opinion  of  the  Ma- 
ronites  and  hate  the  Druses,  that  the  American 
residents  think  little  of  the  Maronites,  and  that 
the  English  have  a  lenient  side  for  the  Druses. 
The  Moslems  consistently  despise  all  of  them.  The 
Druse  has  been  a  puzzle.  There  are  the  same  hor- 
rible stories  current  about  him  that  were  believed 
of  the  early  Christians ;  the  Moslem  believes  that 
infants  are  slain  and  eaten  in  his  midnight  assem- 
blies, and  that  once  a  year  the  Druse  community 


THE    DRUSES  259 

meets  in  a  cavern  at  midnight,  the  lights  are  extin- 
guished, and  the  sexes  mingling  by  chance  in  the 
license  of  darkness  choose  companions  for  the  year. 
But  the  Druse  creed,  long  a  secret,  is  now  known; 
they  are  the  disciples  of  Hakim,  a  Khalif  of  the 
Fatimite  dynasty;  they  believe  in  the  unity  of  God 
and  his  latest  manifestation  in  Hakim ;  they  are  as 
much  a  political  as  a  religious  society;  they  are 
accomplished  hypocrites,  cunning  in  plotting  and 
bold  in  action;  they  profess  to  possess  "the  truth," 
and  having  this,  they  are  indifferent  to  externals, 
and  are  willing  to  be  Moslems  with  the  Moslems 
and  Christians  with  the  Christians,  while  inwardly 
feeling  a  contempt  for  both.  They  are  the  most 
supercilious  of  all  the  Eastern  sects.  What  they 
are  about  to  do  is  always  the  subject  of  anxiety  in 
the  Lebanon  regions. 

At  the  stations  of  the  road  we  found  usually  a 
wretched  family  or  two  dwelling  in  a  shanty,  half 
stable  and  half  cafe,  always  a  woman  with  a  baby 
in  her  arms,  and  the  superabundant  fountains  for 
nourishing  it  displayed  to  all  the  world ;  generally 
some  slatternly  girls,  and  groups  of  rough  mule- 
teers and  drivers  smoking.  At  one,  I  remember  a 
Jew  who  sold  antique  gems,  rings,  and  coins,  with 
a  shocking  face,  which  not  only  suggested  the  first 
fall  of  his  race,  but  all  the  advantages  he  has  since 
taken  of  his  innocent  fellows,  by  reason  of  his 
preoccupation  of  his  position  of  knowledge  and 
depravity. 

We  made  always,  except  in  the  steep  ascents, 
about  ten  miles  aii  hour.  The  management  of  the 


260  ON    THE   ROAD   TO   DAMASCUS 

route  is  the  perfection  of  French  system  and  bureau- 
cracy. We  travel  with  a  way-bill  of  numbered 
details,  as  if  we  were  a  royal  mail.  At  every  sta- 
tion we  change  one  horse,  so  that  we  always  have 
a  fresh  animal.  The  way-bill  is  at  every  station 
signed  by  the  agent,  and  the  minute  of  arrival  and 
departure  exactly  noted;  each  horse  has  its  num- 
ber, and  the  number  of  the  one  taken  and  the  one 
left  is  entered.  All  is  life  and  promptness  at  the 
stations ;  changes  are  quickly  made.  The  way-bill 
would  show  the  company  the  exact  time  between 
stations;  but  I  noticed  that  our  driver  continually 
set  his  watch  backwards  and  forwards,  and  I  found 
that  he  and  the  dragoman  had  a  private  understand- 
ing to  conceal  our  delays  for  lunch,  for  traffic  with 
Jews,  or  for  the  enjoyment  of  scenery. 

After  we  had  crossed  the  summit  of  the  first 
ridge  we  dashed  down  the  gate  of  a  magnificent 
canon,  the  rocks  heaved  up  in  perpendicular  strata, 
overhanging,  craggy,  crumbled,  wild.  We  crossed 
then  a  dreary  and  nearly  arid  basin ;  climbed,  by 
curves  and  zigzags,  another  ridge,  and  then  went 
rapidly  down  until  we  struck  the  wild  and  narrow 
gorge  of  the  sacred  Abana.  Immediately  luxuriant 
vegetable  life  began.  The  air  was  sweet  with  the 
blossoms  of  the  mish-mish  (apricot),  and  splendid 
walnuts  and  poplars  overshadowed  us.  The  river, 
swollen  and  rushing  amid  the  trees  on  its  banks, 
was  frightfully  rapid.  The  valley  winds  sharply, 
and  gives  room  only  for  the  river  and  the  road, 
and  sometimes  only  for  one  of  them.  Sometimes 
the  river  is  taken  out  of  its  bed  and  carried 


THE   APPROACH   TO   THE   CITY  261 

one  bank  or  the  other;  sometimes  the  road  crosses 
it,  and  again  pursues  its  way  between  its  divided 
streams.  We  were  excited  by  its  rush  and  vol- 
ume, and  by  the  rich  vegetation  along  its  sides. 
We  came  to  fantastic  Saracenic  country-seats,  to 
arcaded  and  latticed  houses  set  high  up  over  the 
river,  to  evidences  of  wealth  and  of  proximity  to  a 
great  city. 

Suddenly,  for  we  seemed  to  have  become  a  part 
of  the  rushing  torrent  and  to  share  its  rapidity,  we 
burst  out  of  the  gorge,  and  saw  the  river,  overpass- 
ing its  narrow  banks,  flowing  straight  on  before  us, 
and  beyond,  on  a  level,  the  minarets  and  domes  of 
Damascus !  All  along  the  river,  on  both  banks  of 
it,  and  along  the  high  wall  by  the  roadside,  were 
crowds  of  men  in  Turkish  costume,  of  women  in 
pure  white,  of  Arabs  sitting  quietly  by  the  stream 
smoking  the  narghileh,  squatting  in  rows  along  the 
wall  and  along  the  water,  all  pulling  at  the  water- 
pipe.  There  were  tents  and  booths  erected  by  the 
river.  In  a  further  reach  of  it  men  and  boys  were 
bathing.  Ranks  and  groups  of  veiled  women  and 
children  crouched  on  the  damp  soil  close  to  the 
flood,  or  sat  immovable  on  some  sandy  point.  It 
is  a  delicious  holiday  for  two  or  three  women  to  sit 
the  livelong  day  by  water,  running  or  stagnant,  to 
sit  there  with  their  veils  drawn  over  their  heads, 
as  rooted  as  water-plants,  and  as  inanimate  as  bags 
of  flour.  It  was  a  striking  Oriental  picture,  played 
on  by  the  sun,  enlivened  by  the  swift  current, 
which  dashes  full  into  the  city. 

As  we  spun  on,  the  crowd  thickened,  —  soldiers, 


262  ON   THE   ROAD   TO    DAMASCUS 

grave  Turks  on  caparisoned  horses  or  white  don- 
keys, Jews,  blacks,  Persians.  We  crossed  a  trem- 
bling bridge,  and  rattled  into  town  over  stony 
pavements,  forced  our  way  with  difficulty  into 
streets  narrow  and  broken  by  sharp  turns,  the  car- 
riage-wheels scarcely  missing  men  and  children 
stretched  on  the  ground,  who  refused,  on  the  theory 
of  their  occupation  of  the  soil  prior  to  the  inven- 
tion of  wheels,  to  draw  in  even  a  leg;  and,  in  a 
confused  whirl  of  novel  sights  and  discordant  yells, 
barks,  and  objurgations,  we  came  to  Dimitri's  ho- 
tel. The  carriage  stopped  in  the  narrow  street; 
a  small  door  in  the  wall,  a  couple  of  feet  above  the 
pavement,  opened,  and  we  stepped  through  into  a 
little  court  occupied  by  a  fountain  and  an  orange- 
tree  loaded  with  golden  fruit.  Thence  we  passed 
into  a  large  court,  the  centre  of  the  hotel,  where  the 
Abana  pours  a  generous  supply  into  a  vast  marble 
basin,  and  trees  and  shrubs  offer  shelter  to  singing 
birds.  About  us  was  a  wilderness  of  balconies, 
staircases,  and  corridors,  the  sun  flooding  it  all; 
and  Dimitri  himself,  sleek,  hospitable,  stood  bow- 
ing, in  a  red  fez,  silk  gown,  and  long  gold  chain. 


xin 

THE  OLDEST  OF  CITIES 

T  is  a  popular  opinion  that  there  is  no- 
thing' of  man's  work  older  than  Damas- 
cus ;  there  is  certainly  nothing  newer. 
The  city  preserves  its  personal  identity 
as  a  man  keeps  his  from  youth  to  age,  through 
the  constant  change  of  substance.  The  man  has  in 
his  body  not  an  atom  of  the  boy;  but  if  the  boy 
incurred  scars,  they  are  perpetuated  in  the  man. 
Damascus  has  some  scars.  We  say  of  other  an- 
cient cities,  "This  part  is  old,  that  part  is  new." 
We  say  of  Damascus,  its  life  is  that  of  a  tree,  de- 
cayed at  heart,  dropping  branches,  casting  leaves, 
but  always  renewing  itself. 

*/ 

How  old  is  Damascus?  Or,  rather,  how  long 
has  a  city  of  that  name  existed  here  on  the  banks 
of  the  Abana?  According  to  Jewish  tradition, 
which  we  have  no  reason  to  doubt,  it  was  founded 
by  Uz,  the  son  of  Aram,  the  son  of  Shem.  By  the 
same  tradition  it  was  a  great  city  when  a  remark- 
able man,  of  the  tenth  generation  from  the  Deluge, 
—  a  person  of  great  sagacity,  not  mistaken  in  his 
opinions,  skillful  in  the  celestial  science,  compelled 
to  leave  Chaldea  when  he  was  seventy-five  years 


264  THE    OLDEST    OF    CITIES 

old,  on  account  of  his  religious  opinions,  since  he 
ventured  to  publish  the  notion  that  there  was  but 
one  God,  the  Creator  of  the  Universe,  —  came 
with  an  army  of  dependents  and  "reigned"  in  the 
city  of  Uz.  After  some  time  Abraham  removed 
into  Canaan,  which  was  already  occupied  by  the 
Canaanites,  who  had  come  from  the  Persian  Gulf, 
established  themselves  in  wall-towns  in  the  hills, 
built  Sidon  on  the  coast,  and  carried  their  con- 
quests into  Egypt.  It  was  doubtless  during  the 
reign  of  the  Hittites,  or  Shepherd  Kings,  that 
Abraham  visited  Egypt.  Those  usurpers  occupied 
the  throne  of  the  Pharaohs  for  something  like  five 
hundred  years,  and  it  was  during  their  occupancy 
that  the  Jews  settled  in  the  Delta. 

Now,  if  we  can  at  all  fix  the  date  of  the  reign  of 
the  Shepherd  Kings,  we  can  approximate  to  the 
date  of  the  foundation  of  Damascus,  for  Uz  was 
the  third  generation  from  Noah,  and  Abraham  was 
the  tenth.  We  do  not  know  how  to  reckon  a  gen- 
eration in  those  days,  when  a  life-lease  was  such  a 
valuable  estate,  but  if  we  should  assume  it  to  be  a 
century,  we  should  have  about  seven  hundred  years 
between  the  foundation  of  Damascus  and  the  visit 
of  Abraham  to  Egypt,  a  very  liberal  margin.  But 
by  the  chronology  of  Mariette  Bey,  the  approxi- 
mate date  of  the  Shepherds'  invasion  is  2300  B.  c. 
to  2200  B.  c.,  and  somewhat  later  than  that  time 
Abraham  was  in  Damascus.  If  Damascus  was 
then  seven  hundred  years  old,  the  date  of  its  foun- 
dation would  be  about  3000  B.  c.  to  2900  B.  c. 

Assuming  that  Damascus  has  this  positive  old 


ITS   AGE  265 

age,  how  old  is  it  comparatively?  When  we  re- 
gard it  in  this  light,  we  are  obliged  to  confess  that 
it  is  a  modern  city.  Wljen  Uz  and  his  friends 
wandered  out  of  the  prolific  East,  and  pitched 
their  tents  by  the  Abana,  there  was  already  on  the 
banks  of  the  Nile  a  civilized,  polished  race,  which 
had  nearly  completed  a  cycle  of  national  existence 
much  longer  than  the  duration  of  the  Koaian  Em- 
pire. It  was  about  the  eleventh  dynasty  of  the 
Egyptian  kingdom,  the  Great  Pyramid  had  been 
built  more  than  a  thousand  years,  and  the  already 
degenerate  Egyptians  of  the  "Old  Empire  "  had 
forgotten  the  noble  art  which  adorned  and  still 
renders  illustrious  the  reigns  of  the  pyramid-build- 
ers. 

But  if  Damascus  cannot  claim  the  highest  anti- 
quity, it  has  outlived  all  its  rivals  on  the  earth,  and 
has  flourished  in  a  freshness  as  perennial  as  the 
fountain  to  which  it  owes  its  life,  through  all  the 
revolutions  of  the  Orient.  As  a  necessary  com- 
mercial capital  it  has  pursued  a  pretty  uniform 
tenor  under  all  its  various  masters.  Tiglath-Pile- 
ser  attempted  to  destroy  it ;  it  was  a  Babylonian 
and  then  a  Persian  satrapy  for  centuries;  it  was  a 
Greek  city ;  it  was  the  capital  of  a  Roman  province 
for  seven  hundred  years;  it  was  a  Christian  city 
and  reared  a  great  temple  to  John  the  Baptist ;  it 
was  the  capital  of  the  Saracenic  Empire,  in  which 
resided  the  ruler  who  gave  laws  to  all  the  lands 
from  India  to  Spain;  it  was  ravaged  by  Tamer- 
lane; it  now  suffers  the  blight  of  Turkish  imbecil- 
ity. From  of  old  it  was  a  caravan  station  and  a 


266  THE    OLDEST    OF   CITIES 

mart  of  exchange,  a  camp  by  a  stream;  it  is  to- 
day a  commercial  hive,  swarming  with  an  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  people,  a  city  without  monu- 
ments of  its  past  or  ambition  for  its  future. 

If  one  could  see  Damascus,  perhaps  he  could  in- 
vent a  phrase  that  would  describe  it;  but  when 
you  have  groped  and  stumbled  about  in  it  for  a 
couple  of  weeks,  endeavoring  in  vain  to  get  a  view 
of  more  than  a  few  rods  of  it  at  a  time,  you  are 
utterly  at  a  loss  how  to  convey  an  impression  of  it 
to  others. 

If  Egypt  is  the  gift  of  the  Nile,  the  river  Abana 
is  the  life  of  Damascus;  its  water  is  carried  into 
the  city  on  a  dozen  different  levels,  making  it  lit- 
erally one  of  fountains  and  running  water.  Some- 
times the  town  is  flooded ;  the  water  had  only  just 
subsided  from  the  hotel  when  we  arrived.  This 
inundation  makes  the  city  damp  for  a  long  time. 
Indeed,  it  is  at  all  times  rather  soaked  with  water, 
and  is  —  with  all  respect  to  Uz  and  Abraham  and 
the  dynasty  of  the  Omeiyades  —  a  sort  of  habitable 
frog-pond  on  a  grand  scale.  At  night  the  noise  of 
frogs,  even  at  our  hotel,  is  the  chief  music,  the 
gentle  twilight  song,  broken,  it  is  true,  by  the  in- 
cessant howling  and  yelping  of  savage  dogs,  packs 
of  which  roam  the  city  like  wolves  all  night. 
They  are  mangy  yellow  curs,  without  a  single  good 
quality,  except  that  they  sleep  all  the  daytime.  In 
every  quarter  of  the  city  you  see  ranks  and  rows 
of  them  asleep  in  the  sun,  occupying  half  the  street 
and  nestling  in  all  the  heaps  of  rubbish.  But  much 
as  has  been  said  of  the  dogs  here,  I  think  the  frogs 


THE   NARGHILEH  267 

are  the  feature  of  the  town ;  they  are  as  numerous 
as  in  the  marshes  of  Ravenna. 

Still  the  water  could  not  be  spared.  It  gives 
sparkle,  life,  verdure.  In  walking  you  constantly 
get  glimpses  through  heavy  doorways  of  fountains, 
marble  tanks  of  running  water,  of  a  blooming  tree 
or  a  rose-trellis  in  a  marble  court,  of  a  garden  of 
flowers.  The  crooked,  twisted,  narrow  streets, 
mere  lanes  of  mud-walls,  would  be  scarcely  endur- 
able but  for  these  occasional  glimpses,  and  the 
sight  now  and  then  of  the  paved,  pillared  court  of 
a  gayly  painted  mosque. 

One  ought  not  to  complain  when  the  Arab  bar- 
ber who  trims  his  hair  gives  him  a  narghileh  to 
smoke  during  the  operation ;  but  Damascus  is  not 
so  Oriental  as  Cairo,  the  predominant  Turkish 
element  is  not  so  picturesque  as  the  Egyptian. 
And  this  must  be  said  in  the  face  of  the  universal 
use  of  the  narghileh,  which  more  than  any  other 
one  thing  imparts  an  Oriental,  luxurious  tone  to 
the  city.  The  pipe  of  Egypt  is  the  chibouk,  a  stem 
of  cherry  five  feet  long  with  a  small  clay  bowl ; 
however  richly  it  may  be  ornamented,  furnished 
with  a  costly  amber  mouthpiece,  wound  with  wire 
of  gold,  and  studded,  as  it  often  is,  with  diamonds 
and  other  stones  of  price,  it  is,  at  the  best,  a  stiff 
affair;  and  even  this  pipe  is  more  and  more  dis- 
placed by  the  cigar,  just  as  in  Germany  the  meer- 
schaum has  yielded  to  the  cigar  as  the  Germans 
have  become  accessible  to  foreign  influences.  But 
in  Damascus  the  picturesque  narghileh,  encourager 
of  idleness,  is  still  the  universal  medium  of  smoke. 


268  THE    OLDEST    OF    CITIES 

The  management  of  the  narghileh  requires  that 
a  person  should  give  his  undivided  mind  to  it;  in 
return  for  that,  it  gives  him  peace.  The  simplest 
narghileh  is  a  cocoanut -shell,  with  a  flexible  stem 
attached,  and  an  open  metal  bowl  on  top  for  the 
tobacco.  The  smoke  is  drawn  through  the  water 
which  the  shell  contains.  Other  narghilehs  have  a 
glass  standard  and  water-bowl,  and  a  flexible  stem- 
two  or  three  yards  in  length.  The  smoker,  seated 
cross-legged  before  this  graceful  object,  appears 
to  be  worshiping  his  idol.  The  mild  Persian  to- 
bacco is  kept  alight  by  a  slowly  burning  piece  of 
dried  refuse  which  is  kindly  furnished  by  the  camel 
for  fuel ;  and  the  smoke  is  inhaled  into  the  lungs, 
and  slowly  expelled  from  the  nostrils  and  the 
mouth.  Although  the  hastily  rolled  cigarette  is  the 
resort  of  the  poor  in  Egypt,  and  is  somewhat  used 
here,  it  must  be  a  very  abandoned  wretch  who 
cannot  afford  a  pull  at  a  narghileh  in  Damascus. 
Its  universality  must  excuse  the  long  paragraph  I 
have  devoted  to  this  pipe.  You  see  men  smoking 
it  in  all  the  cafes,  in  all  the  shops,  by  the  roadside, 
seated  in  the  streets,  in  every  garden,  and  on  the 
ho\ise-tops.  The  visible  occupation  of  Damascus 
is  sucking  this  pipe. 

Our  first  walk  in  the  city  was  on  Sunday  to  the 
church  of  the  Presbyterian  mission ;  on  our  way 
we  threaded  a  wilderness  of  bazaars,  nearly  all  of 
them  roofed  over,  most  of  them  sombre  and  gloomy. 
Only  in  the  glaring  heat  of  summer  could  they  be 
agreeable  places  of  refuge.  The  roofing  of  these 
tortuous  streets  and  lanes  is  not  so  much  to  ex- 


A    DISAPPOINTING   PARADISE  269 

elude  the  sun,  I  imagine,  as  to  keep  out  the  snow, 
and  the  roofs  are  consequently  substantial;  for 
Damascus  has  an  experience  of  winter,  being 
twenty -two  hundred  feet  above  the  sea-level,  nearly 
as  high  as  Jerusalem.  These  bazaars,  so  much 
vaunted  all  through  the  Orient,  disappointed  us 
not  in  extent,  for  they  are  interminable,  but  in 
wanting  the  picturesqueness,  oddity,  and  richness 
of  those  of  Cairo.  And  this,  like  tiio  general  ap- 
pearance of  the  city,  is  a  disappointment  hard  to 
be  borne,  for  we  have  been  taught  to  believe  that 
Damascus  is  a  Paradise  on  earth,  and  that  here, 
if  anywhere,  we  should  come  into  that  region  of 
enchantment  which  the  poets  of  the  Arabian 
Nights'  tales  have  imposed  upon  us  as  the  actual 
Orient.  Should  we  have  recognized,  in  the  low 
and  partially  flooded  strip  of  grass-land  through 
which  we  drove  from  the  mouth  of  the  Abana 
gorge  to  the  western  gate  of  the  city,  the  green 
Merj  of  the  Arabian  poets,  that  gem  of  the  earth  ? 
The  fame  of  it  has  gone  abroad  throughout  the 
world,  as  if  it  were  a  unique  gift  of  Allah  to  his 
favorites.  Why,  every  Occidental  land  has  a  mil- 
lion glades,  watered,  green-sodded,  tree-embow- 
ered, more  lovely  than  this,  that  no  poet  has 
thought  it  worth  while  to  celebrate. 

We  found  a  little  handful  of  worshipers  at  the 
mission  church,  and  among  them  —  Heaven  forgive 
us  for  looking  at  her  on  Sunday !  —  an  eccentric 
and  somewhat  notorious  English  lady  of  title,  who 
shares  the  bed  and  board  of  an  Arab  sheykh  in  his 
harem  outside  the  walls.  It  makes  me  blush  for 


270  THE    OLDEST    OF   CITIES 

the  attractiveness  of  my  own  country,  and  tho 
slighted  fascination  of  the  noble  red  man  in  his 
paint  and  shoddy  blanket,  when  I  see  a  lady,  sated 
with  the  tame  civilization  of  England,  throw  her- 
self into  the  arms  of  one  of  these  coarse  bigamists 
of  the  desert.  Has  he  no  reputation  in  the  mother 
country,  our  noble,  chivalrous  Walk-Under-the- 
Ground  ? 

We  saw  something  of  the  missionaries  of  Da- 
mascus, but  as  I  was  not  of  the  established  religion 
at  the  court  of  Washington  at  the  time  of  my  de- 
parture from  home,  and  had  no  commission  to  re- 
port to  the  government,  either  upon  the  condition 
of  consulates  or  of  religion  abroad,  I  am  not  pre- 
pared to  remark  much  upon  the  state  of  either  in 
this  city.  I  should  say,  however,  that  not  many 
direct  converts  were  made  either  from  Moslemism 
or  from  other  Christian  beliefs,  but  that  incalcula- 
ble good  is  accomplished  by  the  schools  which  the 
missionaries  conduct.  The  influence  of  these,  in 
encouraging  a  disposition  to  read,  and  to  inquire 
into  the  truth  and  into  the  conditions  of  a  better 
civilization,  is  not  to  be  overestimated.  What  im- 
pressed me  most,  however,  in  the  fortune  of  these 
able,  faithful  servants  of  the  propagandism  of 
Christian  civilization,  was  their  pathetic  isolation. 
A  gentleman  and  his  wife  of  this  mission  had  been 
thirty  years  absent  from  the  United  States.  The 
friends  who  cheered  or  regretted  their  departure, 
who  cried  over  them,  and  prayed  over  them,  and 
followed  them  with  tender  messages,  had  passed 
away,  or  become  so  much  absorbed  in  the  ever- 


THE    MISSIONARIES  271 

exciting  life  at  home  as  to  have  almost  forgotten 
those  who  had  gone  away  to  the  heathen  a  gener- 
ation ago.  The  Mission  Board  that  personally 
knew  them  and  lovingly  cared  for  them  is  now 
composed  of  strangers  to  them.  They  were,  in 
fact,  expatriated,  lost  sight  of.  And  yet  they  had 
gained  no  country  nor  any  sympathies  to  supply 
the  place  of  those  lost.  They  must  always  be,  to 
a  great  degree,  strangers  in  this  fierce,  barbarous 
city. 

We  wandered  down  through  the  Christian  quar- 
ter of  the  town :  few  shops  are  here ;  we  were  most 
of  the  time  walking  between  mud-walls,  which 
have  a  door  now  and  then.  This  quarter  is  new ; 
it  was  entirely  burned  by  the  Moslems  and  Druses 
in  1860,  when  no  less  than  twenty-five  hundred 
adult  male  Christians,  heads  of  families,  were 
slaughtered,  and  thousands  more  perished  of 
wounds  and  famine  consequent  upon  the  total  de- 
struction of  their  property.  That  the  Druses  were 
incited  to  this  persecution  by  the  Turkish  rulers  is 
generally  believed.  We  went  out  of  the  city  by 
the  eastern  gate,  called  Bab  Shurky,  which  name 
profanely  suggested  the  irrelevant  colored  image 
of  Bob  Sharkey,  and  found  ourselves  in  the  pres- 
ence of  huge  mounds  of  rubbish,  the  accumulations 
of  refuse  carted  out  of  the  city  during  many  cen- 
turies, which  entirely  concealed  from  view  the 
country  beyond.  We  skirted  these  for  a  while, 
with  the  crumbling  city  wall  on  the  left  hand, 
passed  through  the  hard,  gray,  desolate  Turkish 
cemetery,  and  came  at  length  into  what  might  be 


272  THE    OLDEST    OF   CITIES 

called  country.  Not  that  we  could  see  any  coun- 
try, however ;  we  were  always  between  high  mud- 
walls,  and  could  see  nothing  beyond  them,  except 
the  sky,  unless  we  stepped  through  an  open  door 
into  a  garden. 

Into  one  of  these  gardens,  a  public  one,  and  one 
of  the  most  celebrated  in  the  rhapsodies  of  travel- 
ers and  by  the  inventive  poets,  we  finally  turned. 
When  you  are  walking  for  pleasure  in  your  native 
land,  and  indulging  a  rural  feeling,  would  you  vol- 
untarily go  into  a  damp  swale,  and  sit  on  a  moist 
sod  under  a  willow?  This  garden  is  low,  consid- 
erably lower  than  the  city,  which  has  gradually 
elevated  itself  on  its  own  decay,  and  is  cut  by  little 
canals  or  sluiceways  fed  by  the  Abana,  which  run 
with  a  good  current.  The  ground  is  well  covered 
with  coarse  grass,  of  the  vivid  green  that  one  finds 
usually  in  low  ground,  and  is  liberally  sprinkled 
with  a  growth  of  willows  and  poplars.  In  this  gar- 
den of  the  Hesperides,  in  which  there  are  few  if  any 
flowers,  and  no  promise  of  fruit,  there  is  a  rough 
wooden  shed,  rickety  and  decaying,  having,  if  I  re- 
member rightly,  a  balcony,  —  it  must  have  a  bal- 
cony, —  and  there  pipes,  poor  lemonade,  and  poorer 
ice-cream  are  served  to  customers.  An  Arab  band 
of  four  persons,  one  of  them  of  course  blind  of  an 
eye,  seated  cross-legged  on  a  sort  of  bedstead,  was 
picking  and  thumping  a  monotonous,  never-ending 
tune  out  of  the  usual  instruments.  You  could  not 
deny  that  the  vivid  greenery,  and  the  gayly  ap- 
pareled groups  sitting  about  under  the  trees  and  on 
the  water's  edge,  made  a  lively  scene.  lu  another 


PUBLIC    AND   PRIVATE   GARDENS  273 

garden,  farther  on  around  the  wall,  the  shanty  of 
entertainment  is  a  many-galleried  shaky  construc- 
tion, or  a  series  of  platforms  and  terraces  of  wood, 
overhanging  the  swift  Abana.  In  the  daytime  it 
is  but  a  shabby  sight;  but  at  night,  when  a  thou- 
sand colored  globes  light  it  without  revealing  its 
poverty,  and  the  lights  dance  in  the  water,  and 
hundreds  of  turbaned,  gowned  narghileh-smokers 
and  coffee-drinkers  lounge  in  the  galleries,  or  grace- 
fully take  their  ease  by  the  sparkling  current,  and 
the  faint  thump  of  the  darabouka  is  heard,  and 
some  gesticulating  story-teller,  mounted  upon  a 
bench,  is  reeling  off  to  an  attentive  audience  an  in- 
terminable Arabian  tale,  you  might  fancy  that  the 
romance  of  the  Orient  is  not  all  invented. 

Of  other  and  private  gardens  and  inclosures  we 
had  glimpses,  on  our  walk,  through  open  gates, 
and  occasionally  over  the  walls ;  we  could  imagine 
what  a  fragrance  and  color  would  greet  the  senses 
when  the  apricots  are  in  bloom,  and  the  oranges 
and  lemons  in  flower,  and  how  beautiful  the  view 
might  be  if  the  ugly  walls  did  not  conceal  it.  We 
returned  by  the  saddlers'  bazaar,  and  by  a  famous 
plane-tree,  which  may  be  as  old  as  the  Moslem 
religion;  its  gnarled  limbs  are  like  the  stems  of 
ordinary  trees,  and  its  trunk  is  forty  feet  around. 

The  remark  that  Damascus  is  without  monu- 
ments of  its  past  needs  qualification ;  it  was  made 
with  reference  to  its  existence  before  the  Christian 
era,  and  in  comparison  with  other  capitals  of  anti- 
quity. Remains  may,  indeed,  be  met  in  its  exte- 
rior walls,  and  in  a  broken  column  here  and  there 


274  THE   OLDEST    OF   CITIES 

built  into  a  modern  house,  of  Roman  workman- 
ship, and  its  Great  Mosque  is  an  historical  monu- 
ment of  great  interest,  if  not  of  the  highest  anti- 
quity. In  its  structure  it  represents  three  religions 
and  three  periods  of  art;  like  the  mosque  of  St. 
Sophia  at  Constantinople,  it  was  for  centuries  a 
Christian  cathedral ;  like  the  Dome  of  the  Rock  at 
Jerusalem,  it  is  built  upon  a  spot  consecrated  by 
the  most  ancient  religious  rites.  Situated  in  the 
midst  of  the  most  densely  peopled  part  of  the  city, 
and  pressed  on  all  sides  by  its  most  crowded  ba- 
zaars, occupying  a  quadrangle  nearly  five  hundred 
feet  one  way  by  over  three  hundred  the  other,  the 
wanderer  among  the  shops  is  constantly  coming  to 
one  side  or  another  of  it,  and  getting  glimpses 
through  the  spacious  portals  of  the  colonnaded 
court  within.  Hemmed  in  as  it  is,  it  is  only  by 
diving  into  many  alleys  and  pushing  one's  way 
into  the  rear  of  dirty  shops  and  climbing  upon  the 
roofs  of  houses,  that  one  can  get  any  idea  of  the 
exterior  of  the  mosque.  It  is,  indeed,  only  from 
an  eminence  that  you  can  see  its  three  beautiful 
minarets. 

It  does  not  appear  that  Chosroes,  the  Persian 
who  encamped  his  army  in  the  delicious  gardens 
of  Damascus,  in  the  year  614,  when  he  was  on  his 
way  to  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  and  the  mas- 
sacre of  its  Christian  inhabitants,  disturbed  the 
church  of  John  the  Baptist  in  this  city.  But 
twenty  years  later  it  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Sar- 
acens, who  for  a  few  years  were  content  to  share 
it  with  the  Christian  worshipers.  It  is  said  that 


THE   GREAT   MOSQUE  275 

when  Khaled,  the  most  redoubtable  of  the  Friends 
of  the  Prophet,  whose  deeds  entitled  him  to  the 
sobriquet  of  The  Sword  of  God,  entered  this  old 
church,  he  asked  to  be  conducted  into  the  sacred 
vault  (which  is  now  beneath  the  kubbeh  of  the 
mosque),  and  that  he  was  there  shown  the  head  of 
John  the  Baptist  in  a  gold  casket,  which  had  in 
Greek  this  inscription:  "This  casket  contains  the 
head  of  John  the  Baptist,  son  of  Zachariah." 

The  building  had  been  then  for  over  three  cen- 
turies a  Christian  church.  And  already,  when 
Constantino  dedicated  it  to  Christian  use,  it  had 
for  over  three  hundred  years  witnessed  the  wor- 
ship of  pagan  deities.  The  present  edifice  is  much 
shorn  of  its  original  splendor  and  proportions,  but 
sufficient  remains  to  show  that  it  was  a  worthy 
rival  of  the  temples  of  Ba'albek,  Palmyra,  and 
Jerusalem.  No  part  of  the  building  is  older  than 
the  Roman  occupation,  but  the  antiquarians  are 
agreed  to  think  that  this  was  the  site  of  the  old 
Syrian  temple,  in  which  Ahaz  saw  the  beautiful 
altar  which  he  reproduced  in  the  temple  at  Jeru- 
salem. 

Pieces  of  superb  carving,  recalling  the  temple  of 
the  Sun  at  Ba'albek,  may  still  be  found  in  some 
of  the  gateways,  and  the  noble  Corinthian  columns 
of  the  interior  are  to  be  referred  to  Roman  or 
Greek  workmen.  Christian  art  is  represented  in 
the  building  in  some  part  of  the  walls  and  in  the 
round-topped  windows;  and  the  Moslems  have 
superimposed  upon  all  minarets,  a  dome,  and  the 
gay  decorations  of  colored  marbles  and  flaring 
inscriptions. 


276  THE    OLDEST    OF    CITIES 

The  Moslems  have  been  either  too  ignorant  or 
too  careless  to  efface  all  the  evidences  of  Christian 
occupation.  The  doors  of  the  eastern  gate  are  em- 
bossed with  brass,  and  among  the  emblems  is  the 
Christian  sacramental  cup.  Over  an  arch,  which 
can  be  seen  only  from  the  roof  of  the  silversmiths' 
bazaar,  is  this  inscription  in  Greek:  "Thy  king- 
dom, O  Christ,  is  an  everlasting  kingdom,  and  thy 
dominion  endureth  throughout  all  generations." 

It  required  a  special  permit  to  admit  us  to  the 
mosque,  but  when  we  were  within  the  sacred  pre- 
cincts and  shod  with  slippers,  lest  our  infidel  shoes 
should  touch  the  pavement,  we  were  followed  by  a 
crowd  of  attendants  who  for  the  moment  overcame 
their  repugnance  to  our  faith  in  expectation  of  our 
backsheesh.  The  interior  view  is  impressive  by 
reason  of  the  elegant  minarets  and  the  fine  col- 
onnaded open  court.  Upon  one  of  the  minarets 
Jesus  will  descend  when  he  comes  to  judge  the 
world.  The  spacious  mosque,  occupying  one  side 
of  the  court,  and  open  on  that  side  to  its  roof,  is 
divided  in  its  length  by  two  rows  of  Corinthian 
columns,  and  has  a  certain  cheerfulness  and  hos- 
pitality. The  tesselated  marble  pavement  of  the 
interior  is  much  worn,  and  is  nearly  all  covered 
with  carpets  of  Persia  and  of  Smyrna.  The  only 
tomb  in  the  mosque  is  that  of  St.  John  the  Baptist, 
which  is  draped  in  a  richly  embroidered  cloth. 

We  were  anew  impressed  by  the  homelike,  dem- 
ocratic character  of  the  great  mosques.  This, 
opening  by  its  four  gates  into  the  busiest  bazaars, 
as  we  said,  ».s  much  frequented  at  all  hours.  At 


A    PECULIAR    VIEW  '     277 

the  seasons  of  prayer  you  may  see  great  numbers 
prostrating  themselves  in  devotion,  and  at  all  other 
times  this  cool  retreat  is  a  refuge  for  the  poor  and 
the  weary.  The  fountains  of  running  water  in  the 
court  attract  people,  —  those  who  desire  only  to  sit 
there  and  rest,  as  well  as  those  who  wash  and  pray. 
About  the  fountains  and  in  the  mosque  were  seated 
groups  of  women,  eating  their  noonday  bread,  or 
resting  in  that  dumb  attitude  under  which  Eastern 
women  disguise  their  discontent  or  their  intrigues. 
This  is,  at  any  rate,  a  h.wen  of  rest  for  all,  and  it 
is  a  goodly  sight  to  see  all  classes,  rich  and  poor, 
flocking  in  here,  leaving  their  shoes  at  the  door  or 
carrying  them  in  their  hands. 

The  view  from  the  minaret  which  we  ascended 
is  peculiar.  On  the  horizon  we  saw  the  tops  of 
hills  and  mountains,  snowy  Hermon  among  them. 
Far  over  the  plain  we  could  not  look,  for  the  city 
is  beset  by  a  thicket  of  slender  trees,  which  were 
just  then  in  fresh  leafage.  Withdrawing  our  gaze 
from  the  environs,  we  looked  down  upon  the  wide- 
spread oval-shaped  city.  Most  conspicuous  were 
the  minarets,  then  a  few  domes,  and  then  thou- 
sands of  dome-shaped  roofs.  You  see  the  top  of 
a  covered  city,  but  not  the  city.  In  fact,  it 
scarcely  looks  like  a  city ;  you  see  no  streets,  and 
few  roofs  proper,  for  we  have  to  look  twice  to  con- 
vince ourselves  that  the  flat  spaces  covered  with 
earth  and  often  green  with  vegetation  (gardens  in 
the  air)  are  actually  roofs  of  houses.  The  streets 
are  either  roofed  over  or  are  so  narrow  that  we 
cannot  see  them  from  this  height.  Damascus  is  a 
sort  of  rabbit-burrow. 


278    •  THE   OLDEST    OF   CITIES 

Not  far  from  the  Great  Mosque  is  the  tomb  of 
Saladin.  We  looked  from  the  street  through  a 
grated  window,  to  the  bars  of  which  the  faithful 
have  tied  innumerable  rags  and  strings  (pious  offer- 
ings, which  it  is  supposed  will  bring  them  good 
luck),  into  a  painted  inclosure,  and  saw  a  large 
catafalque,  or  sarcophagus,  covered  with  a  green 
mantle.  The  tomb  is  near  a  mosque,  and  beside 
a  busy  cotton-bazaar ;  it  is  in  the  midst  of  traffic 
and  travel,  among  activities  and  the  full  rush  of 
life,  —  just  where  a  man  would  like  to  be  buried 
in  order  to  be  kept  in  remembrance. 

In  going  about  the  streets  we  notice  the  preva- 
lence of  color  in  portals,  in  the  interior  courts  of 
houses,  and  in  the  baths ;  there  is  a  fondness  for 
decorating  with  broad  gay  stripes  of  red,  yellow, 
and  white.  Even  the  white  pet  sheep  which  are 
led  about  by  children  have  their  wool  stained  with 
dabs  of  brilliant  color,  —  perhaps  in  honor  of  the 
Greek  Easter. 

The  baths  of  Damascus  are  many  and  very  good, 
not  so  severe  and  violent  as  those  of  New  York, 
nor  so  thorough  as  those  of  Cairo,  but,  the  best  of 
them,  clean  and  agreeable.  We  push  aside  a  gay 
curtain  from  the  street  and  descend  by  steps  into 
a  square  apartment.  It  has  a  dome  like  a  mosque. 
Under  the  dome  is  a  large  marble  basin  into  which 
water  is  running;  the  floor  is  tesselated  with  col- 
ored marbles.  Each  side  is  a  recess  with  a  half 
dome,  and  in  the  recesses  are  elevated  divans  piled 
with  cushions  for  reclining.  The  walls  are  painted 
in  stripes  of  blue,  yellow,  and  red,  and  the  room 


THE    BATH  279 

is  bright  with  various  Oriental  stuffs.  There  are 
turbaned  and  silken-attired  attendants,  whose  gen- 
tle faces  might  make  them  mistaken  for  ministers 
of  religion  as  well  as  of  cleanliness,  and  upon  the 
divans  recline  those  who  have  come  from  the  bath, 
enjoying  kief,  with  pipes  and  coffee.  There  is  an 
atmosphere  of  perfect  contentment  in  the  place, 
and  I  can  imagine  how  an  effeminate  ruler  might 
see,  almost  without  a  sigh,  the  empire  of  the  world 
slip  from  his  grasp  while  he  surrendered  himself  to 
this  delicious  influence. 

We  undressed,  were  toweled,  shod  with  wooden 
clogs,  and  led  through  marble  paved  passages  and 
several  rooms  into  an  inner,  long  chamber,  which 
has  a  domed  roof  pierced  by  bulls '-eyes  of  party- 
colored  glass.  The  floor,  of  colored  marbles,  was 
slippery  with  water  running  from  the  overflowing 
fountains,  or  dashed  about  by  the  attendants.  Out 
of  this  room  open  several  smaller  chambers,  into 
which  an  unsocial  person  might  retire.  We  sat 
down  on  the  floor  by  a  marble  basin  into  which 
both  hot  and  cold  water  poured.  After  a  little 
time  spent  in  contemplating  the  humidity  of  the 
world,  and  reflecting  on  the  equality  of  all  men 
before  the  law  without  clothes,  an  attendant  ap- 
proached, and  began  to  deluge  us  with  buckets  of 
hot  water,  dashing  them  over  us  with  a  jocular  en- 
joyment and  as  much  indifference  to  our  person- 
ality as  if  we  had  been  statues.  I  should  like  to 
know  how  life  looks  to  a  man  who  passes  his  days 
in  this  dimly  illumined  chamber  of  steam,  and 
is  permitted  to  treat  his  fellow -men  with  every 


280  THE    OLDEST    OF   CITIES 

mark  of  disrespect.  When  we  were  sufficiently 
drenched,  the  agile  Arab  who  had  selected  me  as 
his  mine  of  backsheesh,  knelt  down  and  began  to 
scrub  me  with  hair  mittens,  with  a  great  show  of 
energy,  uttering  jocose  exclamations  in  his  own 
language,  and  practicing  the  half-dozen  English 
words  he  had  mastered,  one  of  them  being  "dam," 
which  he  addressed  to  me  both  affirmatively  and 
interrogatively,  as  if  under  the  impression  that  it 
conveyed  the  same  meaning  as  tyeb  in  his  vocabu- 
lary. I  suppose  he  had  often  heard  wicked  Eng- 
lishmen, who  were  under  his  hands,  use  it,  and  he 
took  it  for  an  expression  of  profound  satisfaction. 
He  continued  this  operation  for  some  time,  put- 
ting me  in  a  sitting  position,  turning  me  over,  tell- 
ing me  to  "sleep  "when  he  desired  me  to  lie  down, 
encouraging  me  by  various  barbarous  cries,  and 
slapping  his  hand  from  time  to  time  to  make  up 
by  noise  for  his  economical  expenditure  of  mus- 
cular force. 

After  my  hilarious  bather  had  finished  this  pro- 
cess, he  lathered  me  thoroughly,  drenched  me  from 
head  to  heels  in  suds,  and  then  let  me  put  the 
crowning  touch  to  my  happiness  by  entering  one 
of  the  little  rooms,  and  sliding  into  a  tank  of  water 
hot  enough  to  take  the  skin  off.  It  is  easy  enough 
to  make  all  this  process  read  like  a  martyrdom, 
but  it  is,  on  the  contrary,  so  delightful  that  you 
do  not  wonder  that  the  ancients  spent  so  much 
time  in  the  bath,  and  that  next  to  the  amphithea- 
tre the  emperors  and  tyrants  lavished  most  money 
upon  these  establishments,  of  which  the  people 
were  so  extravagantly  fond. 


A    PHYSICAL    PARADISE  281 

Fresh  towels  were  wound  around  us,  turbans 
were  put  on  our  heads,  and  we  were  led  back  to 
the  room  first  entered,  where  we  were  reenveloped 
in  cloths  and  towels,  and  left  to  recline  upon  the 
cushioned  divans;  pipes  and  coffee  were  brought, 
and  we  enjoyed  a  delicious  sense  of  repose  and 
bodily  lightness,  looking  dimly  at  the  grave  fig- 
ures about  us,  and  recognizing  in  them  not  men 
but  dreamy  images  of  a  physical  paradise.  No 
rude  voices  or  sharp  movements  broke  the  repose 
of  the  chamber.  It  was  as  in  a  dream  that  I 
watched  a  handsome  boy,  who,  with  a  long  pole, 
was  handling  the  washed  towels,  and  admired  the 
unerring  skill  that  tossed  the  strips  of  cloth  high 
in  the  air  and  caused  them  to  catch  and  hang 
squarely  upon  the  cords  stretched  across  the  re- 
cesses. The  mind  was  equal  to  the  observation, 
but  not  to  the  comprehension,  of  this  feat.  When 
we  were  sufficiently  cooled,  we  were  assisted  to 
dress,  the  various  articles  of  Frank  apparel  afford- 
ing great  amusement  to  the  Orientals.  The  charge 
for  the  whole  entertainment  was  two  francs  each, 
probably  about  four  times  what  a  native  would 
have  paid. 


XIV 


OTHER  SIGHTS  IN  DAMASCUS 

AY  after  day  we  continued,  like  the 
mourners,  to  go  about  the  streets,  in 
the  tangle  of  the  bazaars,  under  the 
dark  roofs,  endeavoring  to  see  Damas- 
cus. When  we  emerged  from  the  city  gate,  the 
view  was  not  much  less  limited.  I  made  the  cir- 
cuit of  the  wall  on  the  north,  in  lanes,  by  running 
streams,  canals,  inclosed  gardens,  seeing  every- 
where hundreds  of  patient,  summer  -  loving  men 
and  women  squatting  on  the  brink  of  every  rivulet, 
by  every  damp  spot,  in  idle  and  perfect  repose. 

We  stumbled  about  also  on  the  south  side  of 
the  town,  and  saw  the  reputed  place  of  St.  Paul's 
escape,  which  has  been  lately  changed.  It  is  a 
ruined  Saracenic  tower  in  the  wall,  under  which 
is  Bab  Kisan,  a  gate  that  has  been  walled  up  for 
seven  hundred  years.  The  window  does  not  any 
more  exist  from  which  the  apostle  was  let  down  in 
a  basket,  but  it  used  to  be  pointed  out  with  confi- 
dence, and  I  am  told  that  the  basket  is  still  shown, 
but  we  did  not  see  it.  There  are  still  some  houses 
on  this  south  wall,  and  a  few  of  them  have  pro- 
jecting windows  from  which  a  person  might  easily 


THE    CEMETERIES  283 

be  lowered.  It  was  in  such  a  house  that  the  har- 
lot of  Jericho  lived,  who  contrived  the  escape  of 
the  spies  of  Joshua.  And  we  see  how  thick  and 
substantial  the  town  walls  of  that  city  must  have 
been  to  support  human  habitations.  But  they 
were  blown  down. 

Turning  southward  into  the  country,  we  came 
to  the  tomb  of  the  porter  who  assisted  Paul's  es- 
cape, and  who  now  sleeps  here  under  the  weight 
of  the  sobriquet  of  St.  George.  A  little  farther 
out  on  the  same  road  is  located  the  spot  of  Saul's 
conversion.  Near  it  is  the  English  cemetery,  a 
small  high-walled  inclosure,  containing  a  domed 
building  surmounted  by  a  cross ;  and  in  this  histor- 
ical spot,  whose  mutations  of  race,  religion,  and 
government  would  forbid  the  most  superficial  to 
construct  for  it  any  cast-iron  scheme  of  growth  or 
decay,  amid  these  almost  melancholy  patches  of 
vegetation  which  still  hover  in  the  Oriental  imag- 
ination as  the  gardens  of  all  delights,  sleeps  undis- 
turbed by  ambition  or  by  criticism,  having  at 
last,  let  us  hope,  solved  the  theory  of  "averages," 
the  brilliant  Henry  T.  Buckle. 

Not  far  off  is  the  Christian  cemetery.  "  Who 
is  buried  here?"  I  asked  our  thick-witted  guide. 

"Oh,  any  body,  "he  replied,  cheerfully,  "Greeks, 
French,  Italians,  anybody  you  like; "  as  if  I  could 
please  myself  by  interring  here  any  one  I  chose. 

Among  the  graves  was  a  group  of  women,  hair 
disheveled  and  garments  loosened  in  the  nix  in  don 
of  mourning,  seated  about  a  rough  coffin  open  its 
entire  length.  In  it  lay  the  body  of  a  young  man 


284  OTHER    SIGHTS    IN  DAMASCUS 

who  had  been  drowned,  and  recovered  from  the 
water  after  three  days.  The  women  lifted  up  his 
dead  hands,  let  them  drop  heavily,  and  then  wailed 
and  howled,  throwing  themselves  into  attitudes  of 
the  most  passionate  grief.  It  was  a  piteous  sight, 
there  under  the  open  sky,  in  the  presence  of  an 
unsympathizing  crowd  of  spectators. 

Returning,  we  went  round  by  the  large  Moslem 
cemetery,  situated  at  the  southwest  corner  of  the 
city.  It  is,  like  all  Moslem  burying-grounds,  a 
melancholy  spectacle,  —  a  mass  of  small  white- 
washed mounds  of  mud  or  brick,  with  an  inscribed 
headstone, — but  here  rest  some  of  the  most  fa- 
mous men  and  women  of  Moslem  history.  Here  is 
the  grave  of  Ibn'  Asaker,  the  historian  of  Damas- 
cus; here  rests  the  fierce  Moawyeh,  the  founder  of 
the  dynasty  of  the  Omeiyades ;  and  here  are  buried 
three  of  the  wives  of  Mohammed,  and  Fatimeh,  his 
granddaughter,  the  child  of  Ali,  whose  place  of 
sepulture  no  man  knows.  Upon  nearly  every  tomb 
is  a  hollow  for  water,  and  in  it  is  a  sprig  of  myrtle, 
which  is  renewed  every  Friday  by  the  women  who 
come  here  to  mourn  and  to  gossip. 

Much  of  the  traveler's  time,  and  perhaps  the 
most  enjoyable  part  of  it,  in  Damascus,  is  spent 
in  the  bazaars,  cheapening  scarfs  and  rugs  and  the 
various  silken  products  of  Syrian  and  Persian 
looms,  picking  over  dishes  of  antique  coins,  taking 
impressions  of  intaglios,  hunting  for  curious  amu- 
lets, and  searching  for  the  quaintest  and  most  bril- 
liant Saracenic  tiles.  The  quest  of  the  antique  is 
always  exciting,  and  the  inexperienced  is  ever  hope- 


THE   BAZAARS  285 

ful  that  he  will  find  a  gem  of  value  in  a  heap  of 
rubbish ;  this  hope  never  abandons  the  most  blase 
tourist,  though  in  time  he  comes  to  understand 
that  the  sharp-nosed  Jew,  or  the  oily  Armenian, 
or  the  respectable  Turk,  who  spreads  his  delusive 
wares  before  him,  knows  quite  as  well  as  the  seeker 
the  value  of  any  bit  of  antiquity,  not  only  in  Da- 
mascus, but  in  Constantinople,  Paris,  and  London, 
and  is  an  adept  in  all  the  counterfeits  and  imposi- 
tions of  the  Orient. 

The  bazaars  of  the  antique,  of  old  armor,  an- 
cient brasses,  and  of  curiosities  generally,  and  even 
of  the  silver  and  gold  smiths,  are  disappointing 
after  Cairo;  they  are  generally  full  of  rubbish  from 
which  the  choice  things  seem  to  have  been  culled ; 
indeed,  the  rage  for  antiquities  is  now  so  great 
that  sharp  buyers  from  Europe  range  all  the  Ori- 
ent, and  leave  little  for  the  innocent  and  hopeful 
tourist,  who  is  aghast  at  the  prices  demanded,  and 
usually  finds  himself  a  victim  of  his  own  cleverness 
when  he  pays  for  any  article  only  a  fourth  of  the 
price  at  first  asked. 

The  silk  bazaars  of  Damascus  still  preserve, 
however,  a  sort  of  preeminence  of  opportunity, 
although  they  are  largely  supplied  by  the  fabrics 
manufactured  at  Beyrout  and  in  other  Syrian 
towns.  Certainly  no  place  is  more  tempting  than 
one  of  the  silk  khans,  —  gloomy  old  courts,  in  the 
galleries  of  which  you  find  little  apartments  stuffed 
full  of  the  seductions  of  Eastern  looms.  For  my- 
self, I  confess  to  the  fascination  of  those  stuffs  of 
brilliant  dyes,  shot  with  threads  of  gold  and  of 


286  OTHER    SIGHTS   IN    DAMASCUS 

silver.  I  know  a  tall,  oily-tongued  Armenian, 
who  has  a  little  chamber  full  of  shelves,  from  which 
he  takes  down  one  rich  scarf  after  another,  unfolds 
it,  shakes  out  its  shining  hues,  and  throws  it  on 
the  heap,  until  the  room  is  littered  with  gorgeous 
stuffs.  He  himself  is  clad  in  silk  attire ;  he  is  tall, 
suave,  insinuating,  grave,  and  overwhelmingly 
condescending.  I  can  see  him  now,  when  I  ques- 
tion the  value  put  upon  a  certain  article  which  I 
hold  in  my  hand  and  no  doubt  betray  my  admira- 
tion of  in  my  eyes,  —  I  can  see  him  now  throw  back 
his  head,  half  close  his  Eastern  eyes,  and  exclaim, 
as  if  he  had  hot  pudding  in  his  mouth,  "Thot  is 
ther  larster  price." 

I  can  see  Abd-el-Atti  now,  when  we  had  made 
up  a  package  of  scarfs,  and  offered  a  certain  sum 
for  the  lot,  which  the  sleek  and  polite  trader  re- 
fused, with  his  eternal,  "Thot  is  ther  larster  price," 
sling  the  articles  about  the  room,  and  depart  in 
rage.  And  I  can  see  the  Armenian  bow  us  into 
the  corridor  with  the  same  sweet  courtesy,  knowing 
very  well  that  the  trade  is  only  just  begun;  that 
it  is,  in  fact,  under  good  headway ;  that  the  Arab 
will  return,  that  he  will  yield  a  little  from  the 
"larster  price,"  and  that  we  shall  go  away  loaded 
with  his  wares,  leaving  him  ruined  by  the  transac- 
tion, but  proud  to  be  our  friend. 

Our  experience  in  purchasing  old  Saracenic  and 
Persian  tiles  is  perhaps  worth  relating  as  an  illus- 
:ration  of  the  character  of  the  traders  of  Damas- 
;us.  Tiles  were  plenty  enough,  for  several  ancient 
louses  had  recently  been  torn  down  and  the  dealers 


BARGAINING    FOR    TILES  287 

continually  acquire  them  from  ruined  mosques  or 
those  that  are  undergoing  repairs.  The  dragoman 
found  several  lots  in  private  houses,  and  made  a 
bargain  for  a  certain  number  at  two  francs  and  a 
half  each ;  and  when  the  bargain  was  made,  I  spent 
half  a  day  in  selecting  the  specimens  we  desired. 

The  next  morning,  before  breakfast,  we  went  to 
make  sure  that  the  lots  we  had  bought  would  be 
at  once  packed  and  shipped.  But  a  change  had 
taken  place  in  twelve  hours.  There  was  an  Eng- 
lishman in  town  who  was  also  buying  tiles;  this 
produced  a  fever  in  the  market;  an  impression 
went  abroad  that  there  was  a  fortune  to  be  made  in 
tiles,  and  we  found  that  our  bargain  was  entirely 
ignored.  The  owners  supposed  that  the  tiles  we 
had  selected  must  have  some  special  value;  and 
they  demanded  for  the  thirty-eight  which  we  had 
chosen  —  agreeing  to  pay  for  them  two  francs  and 
a  half  apiece  —  thirty  pounds.  In  the  house  where 
we  had  laid  aside  seventy-three  others  at  the  same 
price,  not  a  tile  was  to  be  discovered;  the  old 
woman  who  showed  us  the  vacant  chamber  said 
she  knew  not  what  had  become  of  them,  but  she 
believed  they  had  been  sold  to  an  Englishman. 

We  returned  to  the  house  first  mentioned,  re- 
solved to  devote  the  day  if  necessary  to  the  extrac- 
tion of  the  desired  tiles  from  the  grip  of  their  own- 
ers. The  contest  began  about  eight  o'clock  in  the 
morning ;  it  was  not  finished  till  three  in  the  after- 
noon, and  it  was  maintained  on  our  side  with  some 
disadvantage,  the  only  nutriment  that  sustained  us 
being  a  cup  of  tea  which  we  drank  very  early  iu 


288  OTHER   SIGHTS   IN   DAMASCUS 

the  morning.  The  scene  of  the  bargain  was  the 
paved  court  of  the  house,  in  which  there  was  a 
fountain  and  a  lemon-tree,  and  some  rose-trees 
trained  on  espaliers  along  the  walls.  The  tempt- 
ing enameled  tiles  were  piled  up  at  one  side  of  the 
court  and  spread  out  in  rows  in  the  lewan,  —  the 
open  recess  where  guests  are  usually  received. 
The  owners  were  two  Greeks,  brothers-in-law, 
polite,  cunning,  sharp,  the  one  inflexible,  the  other 
yielding,  —  a  combination  against  which  it  is  al- 
most impossible  to  trade  with  safety,  for  the  yield- 
ing one  constantly  allures  you  into  the  grip  of  the 
inflexible.  The  women  of  the  establishment, 
comely  Greeks,  clattered  about  the  court  on  their 
high  wooden  pattens  for  a  time,  and  at  length  set- 
tled down,  in  an  adjoining  apartment,  to  their 
regular  work  of  embroidering  silken  purses  and 
tobacco-pouches,  taking  time,  however,  for  an  oc- 
casional cigarette  or  a  pull  at  a  narghileh,  and,  in 
a  constant  chatter,  keeping  a  lively  eye  upon  the 
trade  going  on  in  the  court.  The  handsome  chil- 
dren added  not  a  little  to  the  liveliness  of  the 
scene,  and  their  pranks  served  to  soften  the  as- 
perities of  the  encounter;  although  I  could  not 
discover,  after  repeated  experiments,  that  any  af- 
fection lavished  upon  the  children  lowered  the  price 
of  the  tiles.  The  Greek  does  not  let  sentiment 
interfere  with  business,  and  he  is  much  more  diffi- 
cult to  deal  with  than  an  Arab,  who  occasionally 
has  impulses. 

Each  tile  was  the  subject  of  a  separate  bargain 
and   conflict.     The    dicker    went    on    in   Arabic, 


WILT   GREEKS  289 

Greek,  broken  English,  and  dislocated  French, 
and  was  participated  in  not  only  by  the  parties 
most  concerned,  but  by  the  young  Greek  guide 
and  by  the  donkey-boys.  Abd-el-Atti  exhibited 
all  the  qualities  of  his  generalship.  He  was  hu° 
morous,  engaging,  astonished,  indignant,  serious, 
playful,  threatening,  indifferent.  Beaten  on  one 
grouping  of  specimens,  he  made  instantly  a  new 
combination ;  more  than  once  the  transaction  was 
abruptly  broken  off  in  mutual  rage,  obstinacy,  and 
recriminations;  and  it  was  set  going  again  by  a 
timely  jocularity  or  a  seeming  concession.  I  can 
see  now  the  soft  Greek  take  up  a  tile  which  had 
painted  on  it  some  quaint  figure  or  some  lovely 
flower,  dip  it  in  the  fountain  to  bring  out  its  bril- 
liant color,  and  then  put  it  in  the  sun  for  our  ad- 
miration; and  I  can  see  the  dragoman  shake  his 
head  in  slow  depreciation,  and  push  it  one  side, 
when  that  tile  was  the  one  we  had  resolved  to  pos- 
sess of  all  others,  and  was  the  undeclared  centre  of 
contest  in  all  the  combinations  for  an  hour  there- 
after. 

When  the  day  was  two  thirds  spent  we  had 
purchased  one  hundred  tiles,  jealously  watched 
the  packing  of  each  one,  and  seen  the  boxes  nailed 
and  corded.  We  could  not  have  been  more  ex- 
hausted if  we  had  undergone  an  examination  for  a 
doctorate  of  law  in  a  German  university.  Two 
boxes,  weighing  two  hundred  pounds  each,  were 
hoisted  upon  the  backs  of  mules  and  sent  to  the 
French  company's  station ;  there  does  not  appear 
to  be  a  dray  or  a  burden-cart  in  Damascus;  all 


290  OTHER    SIGHTS    IN   DAMASCUS 

freight  is  carried  upon  the  back  of  a  mule  or  a 
horse,  even  long  logs  and  whole  trunks  of  trees. 

When  this  transaction  was  finished,  our  Greek 
guide,  who  had  heard  me  ask  the  master  of  the 
house  for  brass  trays,  told  me  that  a  fellow  whom 
1  had  noticed  hanging  about  there  all  the  morning 
had  some  trays  to  show  me ;  in  fact,  he  had  at  his 
house  "seventeen  trays."  I  thought  this  a  rich 
find,  for  the  beautiful  antique  brasses  of  Persia  are 
becoming  rare  even  in  Damascus;  and,  tired  as 
we  were,  we  rode  across  the  city  for  a  mile  to  a 
secluded  private  house,  and  were  shown  into  an 
upper  chamber.  What  was  our  surprise  to  find 
spread  out  there  the  same  "seventy-three"  tiles 
that  we  had  purchased  the  day  before,  and  which 
had  been  whisked  away  from  us.  By  "seventeen 
tray, "the  guide  meant  "seventy-three."  We  told 
the  honest  owner  that  he  was  too  late ;  we  had  al- 
ready tiles  enough  to  cover  his  tomb. 


IN  THE  LEVANT 

XV 
SOME  PRIVATE  HOUSES 

HE  private  houses  of  Damascus  are 
a  theme  of  wonder  and  admiration 
throughout  the  Orient.  In  a  land  in 
which  a  moist  spot  is  called  a  garden, 
and  a  canal  bordered  by  willows  a  Paradise,  the 
fancy  constructs  a  palace  of  the  utmost  splendor 
and  luxury  out  of  materials  which  in  a  less  glow- 
ing country  would  scarcely  satisfy  moderate  notions 
of  comfort  or  of  ostentation. 

But  the  East  is  a  region  of  contrasts  as  well  as 
of  luxury,  and  it  is  difficult  to  say  how  much  of 
their  reputation  the  celebrated  mansions  of  Damas- 
cus owe  to  the  wretchedness  of  the  ordinary  dwell- 
ings, and  also  to  the  rasrjredness  of  their  surround- 

<~J      '  OO 

ings.  We  spent  a  day  in  visiting  several  of  the 
richest  dwellings,  and  steeping  ourselves  in  the 
dazzling  luxury  they  offer. 

The  exterior  of  a  private  house  gives  no  idea  of 
its  interior.  Sometimes  its  plain  mud-wall  has  a 
solid  handsome  street-door,  and  if  it  is  very  old, 


292  SOME   PRIVATE    HOUSES 

perhaps  a  rich  Saracenic  portal;  but  usually  you 
slip  from  the  gutter,  lined  with  mud-walls,  called  a 
street,  into  an  alley,  crooked,  probably  dirty,  pass 
through  a  stable -yard  and  enter  a  small  court, 
which  may  be  cheered  by  a  tree  and  a  basin  of 
water.  Thence  you  wind  through  a  narrow  pas- 
sage into  a  large  court,  a  parallelogram  of  tessel- 
lated marble,  having  a  fountain  in  the  centre  and 
about  it  orange  and  lemon  trees,  and  roses  and 
vines.  The  house,  two  stories  high,  is  built  about 
this  court,  upon  which  all  the  rooms  open  without 
communicating  with  each  other.  Perhaps  the 
building  is  of  marble,  and  carved,  or  it  may  be 
highly  ornamented  with  stucco,  and  painted  in  gay 
colors.  If  the  establishment  belongs  to  a  Moslem, 
it  will  have  beyond  this  court  a  second,  larger 
and  finer,  with  more  fountains,  trees,  and  flowers, 
and  a  house  more  highly  decorated.  This  is  the 
harem,  and  the  way  to  it  is  a  crooked  alley,  so  that 
by  no  chance  can  the  slaves  or  visitors  of  the  mas- 
ter get  a  glimpse  into  the  apartments  of  the  women. 
The  first  house  we  visited  was  of  this  kind ;  all  the 
portion  the  gentlemen  of  the  party  were  admitted 
into  was  in  a  state  of  shabby  decay;  its  court  in 
disrepair,  its  rooms  void  of  comfort,  —  a  condition 
of  things  to  which  we  had  become  well  accustomed 
in  everything  Moslem.  But  the  ladies  found  the 
court  of  the  harem  beautiful,  and  its  apartments 
old  and  very  rich  in  wood-carving  and  in  ara- 
besques, something  like  the  best  old  Saracenic 
houses  in  Cairo. 

The  houses  of  the  rich  Jews  which  we  saw  are 


IN   THE   JEWS'    QUARTERS  293 

built  like  those  of  the  Moslems,  about  a  paved 
court  with  a  fountain,  but  totally  different  in  archi- 
tecture and  decoration. 

In  speaking  of  a  fountain,  in  or  about  Damas- 
cus, I  always  mean  a  basin  into  which  water  is 
discharged  from  a  spout.  If  there  are  any  jets  or 
upspringing  fountains,  I  was  not  so  fortunate  as 
to  see  them. 

In  passing  through  the  streets  of  the  Jews' 
quarter  we  encountered  at  every  step  beautiful 
children,  not  always  clean  Sunday-school  chil- 
dren, but  ravishingly  lovely,  the  handsomest,  as 
to  exquisite  complexions,  grace  of  features,  and 
beauty  of  eyes,  that  I  have  ever  seen.  And  look- 
ing out  from  the  open  windows  of  the  balconies 
which  hang  over  the  street  were  lovely  Jewish 
women,  the  mothers  of  the  beautiful  children,  and 
the  maidens  to  whom  the  humble  Christian  is 
grateful  that  they  tire  themselves  and  look  out  of 
windows  now  as  they  did  in  the  days  of  the  pro- 
phets. 

At  the  first  Jewish  house  we  entered,  we  were 
received  by  the  entire  family,  old  and  young, 
newly  married,  betrothed,  cousins,  uncles,  and 
maiden  aunts.  They  were  evidently  expecting  com- 
pany about  these  days,  and  not  at  all  averse  to 
exhibiting  their  gorgeous  house  and  their  rich  ap- 
parel. Three  dumpy,  middle-aged  women,  who 
would  pass  for  ugly  anywhere,  welcomed  us  at 
first  in  the  raised  recess,  or  lewan,  at  one  end  of 
the  coiirt;  we  were  seated  upon  the  divans,  while 
the  women  squatted  upon  cushions.  Then  the  rest 


294  SOME   PRIVATE    HOUSES 

of  the  family  began  to  appear.  There  were  the 
handsome  owner  of  the  house,  his  younger  brother 
just  married,  and  the  wife  of  the  latter,  a  tall  and 
pretty  woman  of  the  strictly  wax-doll  order  of 
beauty,  with  large,  swimming  eyes.  She  wore  a 
short-waisted  gown  of  blue  silk,  and  diamonds, 
and,  strange  to  say,  a  dark  wig ;  it  is  the  fashion 
at  marriage  to  shave  the  head  and  put  on  a  wig, 
a  most  disenchanting  performance  for  a  bride. 
The  numerous  children,  very  pretty  and  sweet- 
mannered,  came  forward  and  kissed  our  hands. 
The  little  girls  were  attired  in  white  short-waisted 
dresses,  and  all,  except  the  very  smallest,  wore 
diamonds.  One  was  a  bride  of  twelve  years, 
whose  marriage  was  to  be  concluded  the  next  year. 
She  wore  an  orange -wreath,  her  high  corsage  of 
white  silk  sparkled  with  diamonds,  and  she  was 
sweet  and  engaging  in  manner,  and  spoke  French 
prettily. 

The  girls  evidently  had  on  the  family  diamonds, 
and  I  could  imagine  that  the  bazaar  of  Moses  in  the 
city  had  been  stripped  to  make  a  holiday  for  his 
daughters.  Surely,  we  never  saw  such  a  display 
out  of  the  Sultan's  treasure-chamber.  The  head- 
dress of  one  of  the  cousins  of  the  family,  who  was 
recently  married,  was  a  pretty  hat,  the  coronal 
front  of  which  was  a  mass  of  diamonds.  We  saw 
this  same  style  of  dress  in  other  houses  afterwards, 
and  were  permitted  to  admire  other  young  women 
who  were  literally  plastered  with  these  precious 
stones,  in  wreaths  on  the  head,  in  brooches,  and 
necklaces,  —  masses  of  dazzling  diamonds,  which 


A   JEWISH   FAMILY    AT   HOME  295 

after  a  time  came  to  have  no  more  value  in  our 
eyes  than  glass,  so  common  and  cheap  did  they 
seem.  If  a  wicked  person  could  persuade  one  of 
these  dazzling  creatures  to  elope  with  him,  he 
would  be  in  possession  of  treasure  enough  to  found 
a  college  for  the  conversion  of  the  Jews.  I  could 
not  but  be  struck  with  the  resemblance  of  one  of 
the  plump,  glowing-cheeked  young  girls,  who  was 
set  before  us  for  worship,  clad  in  white  silk  and 
inestimable  jewels,  to  the  images  of  the  Madonna, 
decked  with  equal  affection  and  lavish  wealth, 
which  one  sees  in  the  Italian  churches. 

All  the  women  and  children  of  the  family  walked 
about  upon  wooden  pattens,  ingeniously  inlaid  with 
ivory  or  pearl,  the  two  supports  of  which  raise 
them  about  three  inches  from  the  ground.  They 
are  confined  to  the  foot  by  a  strap  across  the  ball, 
but  being  otherwise  loose,  they  clatter  at  every 
step;  of  course,  graceful  walking  on  these  little 
stilts  is  impossible,  and  the  women  go  about  like 
hens  whose  toes  have  been  frozen  off.  When  they 
step  up  into  the  lewan,  they  leave  their  pattens  on 
the  marble  floor,  and  sit  in  their  stocking-feet. 
Our  conversation  with  this  hospitable  collection  of 
relations  consisted  chiefly  in  inquiries  about  their 
connection  with  each  other,  and  an  effort  on  their 
part  to  understand  our  relationship,  and  to  know 
why  we  had  not  brought  our  entire  families.  They 
were  also  extremely  curious  to  know  about  our 
houses  in  America,  chiefly,  it  would  seem,  to  en- 
force the  contrast  between  our  plainness  and  their 
luxury.  When  we  had  been  served  with  coffee 


296  SOME  PRIVATE   HOUSES 

and  cigarettes,  they  all  rose  and  showed  us  about 
the  apartments. 

The  first  one,  the  salon,  will  give  an  idea  of  the 
others.  It  was  a  lofty,  but  not  large  room,  with 
a  highly  painted  ceiling,  and  consisted  of  two 
parts  :  the  first,  level  with  the  court  and  paved 
with  marble,  had  a  marble  basin  in  the  centre  sup- 
ported on  carved  lions ;  the  other  two  thirds  of  the 
apartment  was  raised  about  a  foot,  carpeted,  and 
furnished  with  chairs  of  wood,  inlaid  with  mother- 
of-pearl,  stiffly  set  against  the  walls.  The  chairs 
were  not  comfortable  to  sit  in,  and  they  were  the 
sole  furniture.  The  wainscoting  was  of  marble,  in 
screen-work,  and  most  elaborately  carved.  High 
up,  near  the  ceiling,  were  windows,  double  win- 
dows in  fact,  with  a  space  between  like  a  gallery, 
so  that  the  lace-like  screen  work  was  exhibited  to 
the  utmost  advantage.  There  was  much  gilding 
and  color  on  the  marble,  and  the  whole  was  costly 
and  gaudy.  The  sleeping-rooms,  in  the  second 
story,  were  also  handsome  in  this  style,  but  they 
were  literally  all  windows,  on  all  sides;  the  space 
between  the  windows  was  never  more  than  three  or 
four  inches.  They  are  admirable  for  light  and 
air,  but  to  enter  them  is  almost  like  stepping  out 
of  doors.  They  are  all  en  suite,  so  that  it  would 
seem  that  the  family  must  retire  simultaneously, 
exchanging  the  comparative  privacy  of  the  isolated 
rooms  below  for  the  community  of  these  glass 
apartments. 

The  salons  that  we  saw  in  other  houses  were  of 
the  same  general  style  of  the  first ;  some  had  mar- 


PRE-ADAMITE    ART  297 

ble  niches  in  the  walls,  the  arch  of  which  was  sup- 
ported by  slender  marble  columns,  and  these  re- 
cesses, as  well  as  the  walls,  were  decorated  with 
painting,  usually  landscapes  and  cities.  The 
painting  gives  you  a  perfectly  accurate  idea  of  the 
condition  of  art  in  the  Orient;  it  was  not  only  pre- 
Raphaelite,  it  was  pre-Adamite,  worse  than  By- 
zantine, and  not  so  good  as  Chinese.  Money  had 
been  freely  lavished  in  these  dwellings,  and  what- 
ever the  Eastern  chisel  or  brush  could  do  to  enrich 
and  ornament  them  had  been  done.  I  was  much 
pleased  by  the  picture  of  a  city,  —  it  may  have 
been  Damascus,  —  freely  done  upon  the  wall.  The 
artist  had  dotted  the  plaster  with  such  houses  as 
children  are  accustomed  to  make  on  a  slate,  ar- 
ranging some  of  them  in  rows,  and  inserting  here 
and  there  a  minaret  and  a  dome.  There  was  not 
the  slightest  attempt  at  shading  or  perspective. 
Yet  the  owners  contemplated  the  result  with  visi- 
ble satisfaction,  and  took  a  simple  and  undisguised 
pleasure  in  our  admiration  of  the  work  of  art. 

"Alas,"  I  said  to  the  delighted  Jew  connoisseur 
who  had  paid  for  this  picture,  "we  have  nothing 
like  that  in  our  houses  in  America,  not  even  in 
the  Capitol  at  Washington !  " 

"But  your  country  is  new,"  he  replied  with 
amiable  consideration;  "you  will  have  of  it  one 
day." 

In  none  of  these  veneered  and  stuccoed  palaces 
did  we  find  any  comfort ;  everywhere  a  profuse  ex- 
penditure of  money  in  Italian  marble,  in  carving, 
in  gilding,  and  glaring  color,  but  no  taste,  except 


298  SOME   PRIVATE   HOUSES 

in  some  of  the  wood-work,  cut  in  arabesque,  and 
inlaid,  —  a  reminiscence  of  the  almost  extinct 
Saracenic  grace  and  invention.  And  the  construc- 
tion of  all  the  buildings  and  the  ornamentation 
were  shabby  and  cheap  in  appearance,  in  spite  of 
the  rich  materials ;  the  marbles  in  the  pavement  or 
the  walls  were  badly  joined  and  raggedly  cemented, 
and  by  the  side  of  the  most  costly  work  was  sure 
to  be  something  mean  and  frail. 

We  supposed  at  first  that  we  ought  to  feel  a 
little  delicacy  about  intruding  our  barefaced  curi- 
osity into  private  houses,  —  perhaps  an  unpardon- 
able feeling  in  a  traveler  who  has  been  long  enough 
in  the  Orient  to  lose  the  bloom  of  Occidental  mod- 
esty. But  we  need  not  have  feared.  Our  hosts 
were  only  too  glad  that  we  should  see  their  state 
and  luxury.  There  was  something  almost  comical 
in  these  Jewish  women  arraying  themselves  in  their 
finest  gowns,  and  loading  themselves  with  dia- 
monds, so  early  in  the  day  (for  they  were  ready  to 
receive  us  at  ten  o'clock),  and  in  their  nai've  en- 
joyment of  our  admiration.  Surely  we  ought  not 
to  have  thought  that  comical  which  was  so  kindly 
intended.  I  could  not  but  wonder,  however,  what 
resource  for  the  rest  of  the  day  could  remain  to  a 
woman  who  had  begun  it  by  dressing  in  all  her 
ornaments,  by  crowning  herself  with  coronets  and 
sprays  of  diamonds,  by  hanging  her  neck  and  arms 
with  glittering  gems,  as  if  she  had  been  a  statue 
set  up  for  idolatry.  After  this  supreme  effort  of 
the  sex,  the  remainder  of  the  day  must  be  intol- 
erably flat.  For  I  think  one  of  the  pleasures  of 


THE    EMIR    ABD-EL-KADER  299 

life  must  be  the  gradual  transformation,  the  bloom- 
ing from  the  chrysalis  of  elegant  morning  desha- 
bille into  the  perfect  flower  of  the  evening  toilet. 

These  princesses  of  Turkish  diamonds  all  wore 
dresses  with  the  classic  short  waist,  which  is  the 
most  womanly  and  becoming,  and  perhaps  their 
apparel  imparted  a  graciousness  to  their  manner. 
We  were  everywhere  cordially  received,  and  usu- 
ally offered  coffee,  or  sherbet  and  confections. 

H.  H.  the  JEmir  Abd-el-Kader  lives  in  a  house 
suitable  to  a  wealthy  Moslem  who  has  a  harem. 
The  old  chieftain  had  expressed  his  willingness  to 
receive  us,  and  N.  Meshaka,  the  American  consular 
agent,  sent  his  kawass  to  accompany  us  to  his  res- 
idence at  the  appointed  hour.  The  old  gentleman 
met  us  at  the  door  of  his  reception-room,  which  is 
at  one  end  of  the  fountained  court.  He  wore  the 
plain  Arab  costume,  with  a  white  turban.  I  had 
heard  so  much  of  the  striking,  venerable,  and  even 
magnificent  appearance  of  this  formidable  desert 
hero,  that  I  experienced  a  little  disappointment  in 
the  reality,  and  learned  anew  that  the  hero  should 
be  seen  in  action,  or  through  the  lenses  of  imagi- 
native description  which  can  clothe  the  body  with 
all  the  attributes  of  the  soul.  The  demigods  so 
seldom  come  up  to  their  reputation!  Abd-el-Kader 
may  have  appeared  a  gigantic  man  when  on  horse- 
back in  the  smoke  and  whirl  of  an  Algerine  com- 
bat ;  but  he  is  a  man  of  medium  size  and  scarcely 
medium  height;  his  head,  if  not  large,  is  finely 
shaped  and  intellectual,  and  his  face  is  open  and 
pleasing.  He  wore  a  beard,  trimmed,  which  I  sus- 


300  SOME    PRIVATE    HOUSES 

pect  ought  to  be  white,  but  which  was  black,  and 
I  fear  dyed.  You  would  judge  him  to  be,  at  least, 
seventy -five,  and  his  age  begins  to  show  by  a  little 
pallor,  by  a  visible  want  of  bodily  force,  and  by 
a  lack  of  lustre  in  those  once  fiery  and  untamable 
eyes. 

His  manner  was  very  gracious,  and  had  a  sim- 
ple dignity,  nor  did  our  interview  mainly  consist 
in  the  usual  strained  compliments  of  such  occa- 
sions. In  reply  to  a  question,  he  said  that  he  had 
lived  over  twenty  years  in  Damascus ;  but  it  was 
evident  that  his  long  exile  had  not  dulled  his  in- 
terest in  the  progress  of  the  world,  and  that  he 
watched  with  intense  feeling  all  movements  of  peo- 
ples in  the  direction  of  freedom.  There  is  no  such 
teacher  of  democracy  as  misfortune,  but  I  fancy 
that  Abd-el-Kader  sincerely  desires  for  others  the 
liberty  he  covets  for  himself.  He  certainly  has  the 
courage  of  his  opinions ;  while  he  is  a  very  strict 
Moslem,  he  is  neither  bigoted  nor  intolerant,  as 
he  showed  by  his  conduct  during  the  massacre  of 
the  Christians  here,  in  1860.  His  face  lighted  up 
with  pleasure  when  I  told  him  that  Americans  re- 
membered with  much  gratitude  his  interference  in 
behalf  of  the  Christians  at  that  time. 

The  talk  drifting  to  the  state  of  France  and 
Italy,  he  expressed  his  full  sympathy  with  the  lib- 
eral movement  of  the  Italian  government,  but  as 
to  France  he  had  no  hope  of  a  republic  at  present ; 
he  did  not  think  the  people  capable  of  it. 

"But  America,''  he  said,  with  sudden  enthusi- 
asm, "that  is  the  country,  in  all  the  world  that  is 


AN    OLD   HERO  301 

the  only  country,  that  is  the  land  of  real  freedom. 
I  hope,"  he  added,  "that  you  will  have  no  more 
trouble  among  yourselves." 

We  asked  him  what  he  thought  of  the  probabil- 
ity of  another  outburst  of  the  Druses,  which  was 
getting  to  be  so  loudly  whispered.  Nobody,  he 
said,  could  tell  what  the  Druses  were  thinking  or 
doing;  he  had  no  doubt  that  in  the  former  rising 
and  massacre  they  were  abetted  by  the  Turkish 
government.  This  led  him  to  speak  of  the  con- 
dition of  Syria:  the  people  were  fearfully  ground 
down,  and  oppressed  with  taxation  and  exactions 
of  all  sorts ;  in  comparison  he  did  not  think  Egypt 
was  any  better  off,  but  much  the  same. 

In  all  our  conversation  we  were  greatly  impressed 
by  the  calm  and  comprehensive  views  of  the  old 
hero,  his  philosophical  temper,  and  his  serenity; 
although  it  was  easy  to  see  that  he  chafed  under 
the  banishment  which  kept  so  eager  a  soul  from 
participation  in  the  great  movements  which  he 
weighed  so  well  and  so  longed  to  aid.  When  re- 
freshments had  been  served,  we  took  our  leave; 
but  the  emir  insisted  upon  accompanying  us 
through  the  court  and  the  dirty  alleys,  even  to  the 
public  street  where  our  donkeys  awaited  us,  and 
bade  us  farewell  with  a  profusion  of  Oriental  sal- 
utations. 


XVI 


SOME  SPECIMEN  TRAVELERS 

T  is  to  be  regretted  that  some  one  has 
not  the  leisure  and  the  genius  —  for  it 
would  require  both  —  to  study  and  to 
sketch  the  more  peculiar  of  the  travel- 
ers who  journey  during  a  season  in  the  Orient,  to 
photograph  their  impressions,  and  to  unravel  the 
motives  that  have  set  them  wandering.  There 
was  at  our  hotel  a  countryman  whose  observations 
on  the  East  pleased  me  mightily.  I  inferred,  cor- 
rectly, from  his  slow  and  deliberate  manner  of 
speech,  that  he  was  from  the  great  West.  A  gen- 
tleman spare  in  figure  and  sallow  in  complexion, 
you  might  have  mistaken  him  for  a  "member" 
from  Tennessee  or  Illinois.  What  you  specially 
admired  in  him  was  his  entire  sincerity,  and  his 
imperviousness  to  all  the  glamour,  historical  or 
romantic,  which  interested  parties,  like  poets  and 
historians,  have  sought  to  throw  over  the  Orient. 
A  heap  of  refuse  in  the  street  or  an  improvident 
dependant  on  Allah,  in  rags,  was  just  as  offensive 
to  him  in  Damascus  as  it  would  be  in  Big  Lickop- 
olis.  He  carried  his  scales  with  him;  he  put  into 
one  balance  his  county-seat  and  into  the  other  the 
entire  Eastern  civilization,  and  the  Orient  kicked 


A    WESTERN    OBSERVER  303 

the  beam,  — and  it  was  with  a  mighty,  though 
secret  joy  that  you  saw  it. 

It  was  not  indeed  for  his  own  pleasure  that  he 
had  left  the  familiar  cronies  of  his  own  town  and 
come  into  foreign  and  uncomfortable  parts;  you 
could  see  that  he  would  much  prefer  to  be  again 
among  the  "directors"  and  "stockholders"  and 
operators,  exchanging  the  dry  chips  of  gossip 
about  stocks  and  rates;  but,  being  a  man  of 
"means,"  he  had  yielded  to  the  imperious  pres- 
sure of  our  modern  society  which  insists  on  travel, 
and  to  the  natural  desire  of  his  family  to  see  the 
world.  Europe  had  not  pleased  him,  although  it 
was  interesting  for  an  old  country,  and  there  were 
a  few  places,  the  Grand  Hotel  in  Paris  for  in- 
stance, where  one  feels  a  little  at  home.  Build- 
ings, cathedrals  ?  Yes,  some  of  them  were  very 
fine,  but  there  was  nothing  in  Europe  to  equal  or 
approach  the  Capitol  in  Washington.  And  gal- 
leries ;  my  wife  likes  them,  and  my  daughter,  —  I 
suppose  I  have  walked  through  miles  and  miles  of 
them.  It  may  have  been  in  the  nature  of  a  confi- 
dential confession,  that  he  was  dragged  into  the 
East,  though  he  made  no  concealment  of  his  re- 
pugnance to  being  here.  But  when  he  had  crossed 
the  Mediterranean,  Europe  had  attractions  for  him 
which  he  had  never  imagined  while  he  was  in  it. 
If  he  had  been  left  to  himself  he  would  have  fled 
back  from  Cairo  as  if  it  were  infested  with  plague ; 
he  had  gone  no  farther  up  the  Nile ;  that  miserable 
hole,  Cairo,  was  sufficient  for  him. 

"They  talk,"  he  was  saying,  speaking  with  that 


304  SOME    SPECIMEN   TRAVELERS 

deliberate  pause  and  emphasis  upon  every  word 
which  characterizes  the  conversation  of  his  section 
of  the  country,  —  "they  talk  about  the  climate  of 
Egypt ;  it  is  all  a  humbug.  Cairo  is  the  most  dis- 
agreeable city  in  the  world,  no  sun,  nothing  but 
dust  and  wind.  I  give  you  my  word  that  we  had 
only  one  pleasant  day  in  a  week;  cold,  — you  can't 
get  warm  in  the  hotel;  the  only  decent  day  we 
had  in  Egypt  was  at  Suez.  Fruit?  What  do  you 
get?  Some  pretend  to  like  those  dry  dates.  The 
oranges  are  so  sour  you  can't  eat  them,  except  the 
Jaffa,  which  are  all  peel.  Yes,  the  Pyramids  are 
big  piles  of  stone,  but  when  you  come  to  architec- 
ture, what  is  there  in  Cairo  to  compare  to  the 
Tuileries?  The  mosque  of  Mohammed  Ali  is  a 
fine  building;  it  suits  me  better  than  the  mosque 
at  Jerusalem.  But  what  a  city  to  live  in !  " 

The  farther  our  friend  journeyed  in  the  Orient, 
the  deeper  became  his  disgust.  It  was  extreme 
in  Jerusalem ;  but  it  had  a  pathetic  tone  of  resig- 
nation in  Damascus;  hope  was  dead  within  him. 
The  day  after  we  had  visited  the  private  houses, 
some  one  asked  him  at  table  if  he  was  not  pleased 
with  Damascus. 

"Damascus!"  he  repeated,  "Damascus  is  the 
most  God-forsaken  place  I  have  ever  been  in. 
There  is  nothing  to  eat,  and  nothing  to  see.  I 
had  heard  about  the  bazaars  of  Damascus;  my 
daughter  must  see  the  bazaars  of  Damascus. 
There  is  nothing  in  them ;  I  have  been  from  one 
end  of  them  to  the  other,  —  it  is  a  mess  of  rubbish. 
I  suppose  you  were  hauled  through  what  they  call 


A    GOOD   HATER  305 

the  private  houses?  There  is  a  good  deal  of 
marble  and  a  good  deal  of  show,  but  there  isn't 
a  house  in  Damascus  that  a  respectable  American 
would  live  in;  there  isn't  one  he  could  be  com- 
fortable in.  The  old  mosque  is  an  interesting 
place ;  I  like  the  mosque,  and  I  have  been  there  a 
couple  of  times,  and  should  n't  mind  going  again ; 
but  I  've  had  enough  of  Damascus.  I  don't  intend 
to  go  out  doors  again  until  my  family  are  ready  to 
leave." 

All  these  intense  dislikes  of  the  Western  ob- 
server were  warmly  combated  by  the  ladies  present, 
who  found  Damascus  almost  a  paradise,  and  were 
glowing  with  enthusiasm  over  every  place  and  in- 
cident of  their  journey.  Having  delivered  his 
opinion,  our  friend  let  the  conversation  run  on 
without  interference,  as  it  ranged  all  over  Pales- 
tine. He  sat  in  silence,  as  if  he  were  patiently 
enduring  anew  the  martyrdom  of  his  pleasure-trip, 
until  at  length,  obeying  a  seeming  necessity  of 
relieving  his  feelings,  he  leaned  forward  and  ad- 
dressed the  lady  next  but  one  to  him,  measuring 
every  word  with  judicial  slowness,  — 

"  Madame  —  I  — -  hate  —  the  —  name  —  of  Pal- 
estine —  and  —  Judaea  —  and  —  the  Jordan  —  and 
—  Damascus  —  and  —  Jerusalem." 

It  is  always  refreshing  in  travel  to  meet  a  can- 
did man  who  is  not  hindered  by  any  weight  of  his- 
toric consciousness  from  expressing  his  opinions ; 
and  without  exactly  knowing  why,  I  felt  under 
great  obligations  to  this  gentleman,  —  for  gentle- 
man he  certainly  was,  even  to  an  old-fashioned 


306  SOME    SPECIMEN   TRAVELERS 

courtesy  that  shamed  the  best  breeding  of  the 
Arabs.  And  after  this  wholesale  sweep  of  the 
Oriental  board,  I  experienced  a  new  pleasure  in 
going  about  and  picking  up  the  fragments  of  ro- 
mance and  sentiment  that  one  might  still  admire. 

There  was  another  pilgrim  at  Damascus  to  whom 
Palestine  was  larger  than  all  the  world  besides, 
and  who  magnified  its  relation  to  the  rest  of  the 
earth  as  much  as  our  more  widely  traveled  friend 
belittled  it.  In  a  waste  but  damp  spot  outside  the 
Bab-el-Hadid  an  incongruous  Cook's  Party  had 
pitched  its  tents,  —  a  camp  which  swarmed  during 
the  day  with  itinerant  merchants  and  beggars,  and 
at  night  was  the  favorite  resort  of  the  most  dis- 
solute dogs  of  Damascus.  In  knowing  this  party 
one  had  an  opportunity  to  observe  the  various 
motives  that  bring  people  to  the  Holy  Land ;  there 
were  a  divinity  student,  a  college  professor,  a 
well-known  publisher,  some  indomitable  English 
ladies,  some  London  cockneys,  and  a  group  of 
young  men  who  made  a  lark  of  the  pilgrimage, 
and  saw  no  more  significance  in  the  tour  than  in  a 
jaunt  to  the  Derby  or  a  sail  to  Margate.  I  was 
told  that  the  guide-book  most  read  and  disputed 
over  by  this  party  was  the  graphic  itinerary  of 
Mark  Twain.  The  pilgrim  to  whom  I  refer,  how- 
ever, scarcely  needed  any  guide  in  the  Holy  Land. 
He  was,  by  his  own  representation,  an  illiterate 
shoemaker  from  the  South  of  England ;  of  school- 
ing he  had  never  enjoyed  a  day,  nor  of  education, 
except  such  as  sprung  from  his  "conversion," 
which  happened  in  his  twentieth  year.  At  that 


A    PRIMITIVE    METHODIST  307 

age  he  joined  the  "Primitive  Methodists,"  and  be- 
came, without  abandoning  his  bench,  an  occasional 
exhorter  and  field-preacher ;  his  study,  to  which  he 
gave  every  moment  not  demanded  by  his  trade, 
was  the  Bible.  To  exhorting  he  added  the  labor 
on  Sunday  of  teaching,  and  for  nearly  forty  years, 
without  interruption,  he  had  taken  charge  of  a 
Sunday-school  class.  He  was  very  poor,  and  the 
incessant  labor  of  six  days  in  the  week  hardly 
sufficed  to  the  support  of  himself  and  his  wife, 
and  the  family  that  began  to  fill  his  humble  lodg- 
ing. Nevertheless,  at  the  very  time  of  his  conver- 
sion he  was  seized  with  an  intense  longing  to  make 
a  pilgrimage  to  the  Holy  Land.  This  desire 
strengthened  the  more  he  read  the  Bible  and  be- 
came interested  in  the  scenes  of  its  prophecies  and 
miracles.  He  resolved  to  go ;  yet  to  undertake  so 
expensive  a  journey  at  the  time  was  impossible, 
nor  could  his  family  spare  his  daily  labor.  But 
early  in  his  married  life,  he  came  to  a  notable  res- 
olution, and  that  was  to  lay  by  something  every 
year,  no  matter  how  insignificant  the  sum,  as  a 
fund  for  his  pilgrimage.  And  he  trusted  if  his 
life  were  spared  long  enough  he  should  be  able  to 
see  with  his  own  eyes  the  Promised  Land;  if  that 
might  be  granted  him,  his  object  in  life  would  be 
attained,  and  he  should  be  willing  to  depart  in 
peace. 

Filled  with  this  sole  idea,  he  labored  at  his  trade 
without  relaxation,  and  gave  his  Sundays  and  his 
evenings  to  a  most  diligent  study  of  the  Bible :  and 
at  length  extended  his  reading  to  other  books, 


308  SOME    SPECIMEN    TRAVELERS 

commentaries  and  travels,  which  bore  upon  his 
favorite  object.  Years  passed  by;  his  Palestine 
fund  accumulated  more  slowly  than  his  information 
about  that  land,  but  he  was  never  discouraged ;  he 
lost  at  one  time  a  considerable  sum  by  misplaced 
confidence  in  a  comrade,  but,  nothing  disheartened, 
he  set  to  work  to  hammer  out  what  would  replace 
it.  Of  course  such  industry  and  singleness  of 
purpose  were  not  without  result;  his  business 
prospered  and  his  fund  increased;  but  with  his 
success  new  duties  opened;  his  children  must  be 
educated,  for  he  was  determined  that  they  should 
have  a  better  chance  in  England  than  their  father 
had  been  given.  The  expenses  of  their  education 
and  his  contributions  to  the  maintenance  of  the 
worship  of  his  society  interfered  sadly  with  his  pil- 
grimage, and  more  than  thirty  years  passed  before 
he  saw  himself  in  possession  of  the  sum  that  he 
could  spare  for  the  purchase  of  a  Cook's  ticket  to 
the  Holy  Land.  It  was  with  pardonable  pride 
that  he  told  this  story  of  his  life,  and  added  that 
his  business  of  shoemaking  was  now  prosperous, 
that  he  had  now  a  shop  of  his  own  and  men  work- 
ing under  him,  and  that  one  of  his  sons,  who 
would  have  as  good  an  education  as  any  nobleman 
in  the  kingdom,  was  a  student  at  the  college  in 
London. 

Of  all  the  party  with  whom  he  traveled,  no  one 
knew  the  Bible  as  well  as  this  shoemaker ;  he  did 
not  need  to  read  it  as  they  explored  the  histori- 
cal places,  he  quoted  chapter  after  chapter  of  it, 
without  hesitation  or  consciousness  of  any  great 


THE    SHOEMAKER   PILGRIM  309 

achievement,  and  he  knew  almost  as  well  the  books 
of  travel  that  relate  to  the  country.  Familiarity 
with  the  English  of  the  Bible  had  not,  however, 
caused  him  to  abandon  his  primitive  speech,  and 
he  did  not  show  his  respect  for  the  sacred  book  by 
adopting  its  grammatical  forms.  Such  phrases  as, 
"It  does  I  good  to  see  he  eat,"  in  respect  to  a  con- 
valescent comrade,  exhibited  this  peculiarity.  In- 
deed, he  preserved  his  independence,  and  vindi- 
cated the  reputation  of  his  craft  the  world  over  for 
a  certain  obstinacy  of  opinion,  if  not  philosophic 
habit  of  mind,  which  pounding  upon  leather  seems 
to  promote.  He  surprised  his  comrades  by  a  lib- 
erality of  view  and  an  absence  of  narrowness  which 
were  scarcely  to  be  expected  in  a  man  of  one  idea. 
I  was  pained  to  think  that  the  reality  of  the  Holy 
Land  might  a  little  impair  the  celestial  vision  he 
had  cherished  of  it  for  forty  years;  but  perhaps 
it  will  be  only  a  temporary  obscuration ;  for  the 
imagination  is  stronger  than  the  memory,  as  we 
see  so  often  illustrated  in  the  writings  of  Oriental 
travelers;  and  I  have  no  doubt  that  now  he  is 
again  seated  on  his  bench,  the  kingdoms  he  beholds 
are  those  of  Israel  and  Judah,  and  not  those  that 
Mr.  Cook  showed  him  for  an  hundred  pounds. 

We  should,  perhaps,  add,  that  our  shoemaker 
cared  for  no  part  of  the  Orient  except  Palestine, 
and  for  no  history  except  that  in  the  Bible.  He 
told  me  that  he  was  forwarded  from  London  to 
Rome,  on  his  way  to  join  Cook's  Pilgrims  at  Cairo, 
in  the  company  of  a  party  of  Select  Baptists  (so 
they  were  styled  in  the  prospectus  of  their  journey), 


310  SOME    SPECIMEN   TRAVELERS 

and  that,  unexpectedly  to  himself  (for  he  was  a 
man  who  could  surmount  prejudices),  he  found 
them  very  good  fellows ;  but  that  he  was  obliged 
to  spend  a  whole  day  in  Rome  greatly  against 
his  will;  it  was  an  old  and  dilapidated  city,  and 
he  did  n't  see  why  so  much  fuss  was  made  over  it. 
Egypt  did  not  more  appeal  to  his  fancy;  I  think 
he  rather  loathed  it,  both  its  past  and  its  present, 
as  the  seat  of  a  vain  heathenism.  For  ruins  or 
antiquities  not  mentioned  in  the  Bible  he  cared 
nothing,  for  profane  architecture  still  less;  Pales- 
tine was  his  goal,  and  I  doubt  if  since  the  first  Cru- 
sade any  pilgrim  has  trod  the  streets  of  Jerusalem 
with  such  fervor  of  enthusiasm  as  this  illiterate, 
Bible-grounded,  and  spiritual-minded  shoemaker. 
We  rode  one  afternoon  up  through  the  suburb 
of  Salahiyeh  to  the  sheykh's  tomb  on  the  naked 
hill  north  of  the  city,  and  down  along  the  scarred 
side  of  it  into  the  Abana  gorge.  This  much- 
vaunted  ride  is  most  of  the  way  between  mud-walls 
so  high  that  you  have  a  sight  of  nothing  but  the 
sky  and  the  tops  of  trees,  and  an  occasional  peep, 
through  chinks  in  a  rickety  gate,  into  a  damp  and 
neglected  garden,  or  a  ragged  field  of  grain  under 
trees.  But  the  view  from  the  heights  over  the 
vast  plain  of  Damascus,  with  the  city  embowered 
in  its  green,  is  superb,  both  for  extent  and  color, 
and  quite  excuses  the  enthusiasm  expended  on  this 
perennial  city  of  waters.  We  had  occasional 
glimpses  of  the  Abana  after  it  leaves  the  city,  and 
we  could  trace  afar  off  the  course  of  the  Pharpar 
by  its  winding  ribbon  of  green.  The  view  was 


THE    ABANA    GORGE  311 

best  long  before  we  reached  the  summit,  at  the 
cemetery  and  the  ruined  mosque,  when  the  mina- 
rets showed  against  the  green  beyond.  A  city 
needs  to  be  seen  from  some  distance,  and  from  not 
too  high  an  elevation ;  looking  directly  down  upon 
it  is  always  uninteresting. 

Somewhere  in  the  side  of  the  mountain,  to  the 
right  of  our  course,  one  of  the  Moslem  legends  has 
located  the  cave  of  the  Seven  Sleepers.  Knowing 
that  the  cave  is  really  at  Ephesus,  we  did  not  care 
to  anticipate  it. 

The  sheykh's  tomb  is  simply  a  stucco  dome  on 
the  ridge,  and  exposed  to  the  draft  of  air  from  a 
valley  behind  it.  The  wind  blew  with  such  vio- 
lence that  we  could  scarely  stand  there,  and  we 
made  all  our  observations  with  great  discomfort. 
What  we  saw  was  the  city  of  Damascus,  shaped 
like  an  oval  dish  with  a  long  handle ;  the  handle 
is  the  suburb  on  the  street  running  from  the  Gate 
of  God  that  sees  the  annual  procession  of  pilgrims 
depart  for  Mecca.  Many  brown  villages  dot  the 
emerald,  —  there  are  said  to  be  forty  in  the  whole 
plain.  Towards  the  east  we  saw  the  desert  and 
che  gray  sand  fading  into  the  gray  sky  of  the  ho- 
rizon. That  way  lies  Palmyra;  by  that  route  goes 
the  dromedary  post  to  Bagdad.  I  should  like  to 
send  a  letter  by  it. 

The  view  of  the  Abana  gorge  from  the  height 
before  we  descended  was  unique.  The  narrow  pass 
is  filled  with  trees ;  but  through  them  we  could  see 
the  white  French  road,  and  the  Abana  divided  into 
five  streams,  carried  at  different  levels  along  the 


312  SOME    SPECIMEN   TRAVELERS 

sides,  in  order  to  convey  water  widely  over  the 
plain.  Along  the  meadow  road,  as  we  trotted  to- 
wards the  city,  as,  indeed,  everywhere  about  the 
city  at  this  season,  we  found  the  ground  marshy 
and  vivacious  with  frogs. 

The  street  called  Straight  runs  the  length  of  the 
city  from  east  to  west,  and  is  straight  in  its  gen- 
eral intention,  although  it  appears  to  have  been 
laid  out  by  a  donkey,  whose  attention  was  con- 
stantly diverted  to  one  side  or  the  other.  It  is  a 
totally  uninteresting  lane.  There  is  no  reason, 
however,  to  suppose  that  St.  Paul  intended  to  be 
facetious  when  he  spoke  of  it.  In  his  day  it  was 
a  magnificent  straight  avenue,  one  hundred  feet 
wide ;  and  two  rows  of  Corinthian  colonnades  ex- 
tending a  mile  from  gate  to  gate  divided  it  length- 
wise. This  was  an  architectural  fashion  of  that 
time;  the  colonnade  at  Palmyra,  "which  is  seen 
stalking  in  a  purposeless  manner  across  the  desert, 
was  doubtless  the  ornament  of  such  a  street. 

The  street  life  of  Damascus  is  that  panorama  of 
the  mean  and  the  picturesque,  the  sordid  and  the 
rich,  of  silk  and  rags,  of  many  costumes  and  all 
colors,  which  so  astonishes  the  Oriental  traveler  at 
first,  but  to  which  he  speedily  becomes  so  accus- 
tomed that  it  passes  almost  unnoticed.  The  ma- 
jority of  the  women  are  veiled,  but  not  so  scrupu- 
lously as  those  of  Cairo.  Yet  the  more  we  see  of 
the  women  of  the  East,  the  more  convinced  we  are 
that  they  are  exceedingly  goo d -hearted ;  it  is  out 
of  consideration  for  the  feelings  of  the  persons  they 
meet  in  the  street  that  they  go  veiled.  This  theory 


AN    EASTERN   DKRVISH 


THE   LIFE   OF  THE  TOWN  313 

is  supported  by  the  fact  that  the  daughters  of  Beth- 
lehem, who  are  all  comely  and  many  of  them  hand- 
some, never  wear  veils. 

In  lounging  through  the  streets  the  whole  life 
and  traffic  of  the  town  is  exposed  to  you :  donkeys 
loaded  with  panniers  of  oranges,  or  with  sickly 
watermelon  cut  up,  stop  the  way  (all  the  melons 
of  the  East  that  I  have  tasted  are  flavorless);  men 
bearing  trays  of  sliced  boiled  beets  cry  aloud  their 
deliciousness  as  if  they  were  some  fruit  of  para- 
dise; boys  and  women  seated  on  the  ground,  hav- 
ing spread  before  them  on  a  paper  some  sort  of 
uninviting  candy;  anybody  planted  by  the  road- 
side ;  dogs  by  the  dozen  snoozing  in  all  the  paths, 
—  the  dogs  that  wake  at  night  and  make  Rome 
howl;  the  various  tradesmen  hammering  in  their 
open  shops;  the  silk-weavers  plying  the  shuttle; 
the  makers  of  "sweets"  stirring  the  sticky  com- 
pounds in  their  shining  copper  pots  and  pans ;  and 
what  never  ceases  to  excite  your  admiration  is  the 
good-nature  of  the  surging  crowd,  the  indifference 
to  being  jostled  and  run  over  by  horses,  donkeys, 
and  camels. 

Damascus  may  be  —  we  have  abundant  testi- 
mony that  it  is  —  a  good  city,  if,  as  I  said,  one 
could  see  it.  Arriving,  you  dive  into  a  hole,  and 
scarcely  see  daylight  again;  you  never  can  look 
many  yards  before  you;  you  move  in  a  sort  of 
twilight,  which  is  deepened  under  the  heavy  tim- 
ber roofs  of  the  bazaars ;  winding  through  endless 
mazes  of  lanes  with  no  view  except  of  a  slender 
strip  of  sky,  you  occasionally  may  step  through 


314  SOME    SPECIMEN    TRAVELERS 

an  opening  in  the  wall  into  a  court  with  a  square 
of  sunshine,  a  tank  of  water,  and  a  tree  or  two. 
The  city  can  be  seen  only  from  the  hill  or  from 
a  minaret,  and  then  you  look  only  upon  roofs. 
After  a  few  days  the  cooping  up  in  this  gorgeous 
Oriental  paradise  became  oppressive. 

We  drove  out  of  the  city  very  early  one  morn- 
ing. I  was  obliged  to  the  muezzin  of  the  nearest 
minaret  for  awakening  me  at  four  o'clock.  From 
our  window  we  can  see  his  aerial  balcony,  —  it  al- 
most overhangs  us ;  and  day  and  night  at  his  ap- 
pointed hours  we  see  the  turbaned  muezzin  circling 
his  high  pinnacle,  and  hear  him  projecting  his  long 
call  to  prayer  over  the  city  roofs.  When  we  came 
out  at  the  west  gate,  the  sun  was  high  enough  to 
color  Hermon  and  the  minarets  of  the  west  side 
of  the  city,  and  to  gleam  on  the  Abana.  As  we 
passed  the  diligence  station,  a  tall  Nubian,  an  em- 
ploye of  the  company,  stood  there  in  the  attitude 
of  seneschal  of  the  city ;  ugliness  had  marked  him 
for  her  own,  giving  him  a  large,  damaged  expanse 
of  face,  from  which  exuded,  however,  an  inexpun- 
gible  good-nature;  he  sent  us  a  cheerful  salam 
aloylcem,  —  "the  peace  of  God  be  with  you;  "  we 
crossed  the  shaky  bridge,  and  got  away  up  the 
swift  stream  at  the  rate  of  ten  miles  an  hour. 

Our  last  view,  with  the  level  sun  coming  over 
the  roofs  and  spires,  and  the  foreground  of  rapid 
water  and  verdure,  gave  us  Damascus  in  its  love- 
liest aspect. 


XVII 

INTO  DAYLIGHT  AGAIN.  —  EPISODE  OF  TURK- 
ISH JUSTICE 

T  was  an  immense  relief  to  emerge 
from  Damascus  into  Beyrout,  —  into 
a  city  open,  cheerful;  it  was  to  ree'n- 
ter  the  world.  How  brightly  it  lies 
upon  its  sunny  promontory,  climbing  up  the  slopes 
and  crowning  every  eminence  with  tree-embowered 
villas!  What  a  varied  prospect  it  commands  of 
sparkling  sea  and  curving  shore ;  of  country  broken 
into  the  most  pleasing  diversity  of  hill  and  vale, 
woodlands  and  pastures;  of  precipices  that  are 
draped  in  foliage ;  of  glens  that  retain  their  primi- 
tive wildness,  strips  of  dark  pine  forest,  groups  of 
cypresses  and  of  palms,  spreading  mulberry  or- 
chards, and  terraces  draped  by  vines ;  of  villages 
dotting  the  landscape ;  of  convents  clinging  to  the 
heights,  and  the  snowy  peaks  of  Lebanon !  Boun- 
teous land  of  silk  and  wine! 

Beyrout  is  the  brightest  spot  in  Syria  or  Pales- 
tine, the  only  pleasant  city  that  we  saw,  and  the 
centre  of  a  moral  and  intellectual  impulse  the  im- 
portance of  which  we  cannot  overestimate.  The 
mart  of  the  great  silk  industry  of  the  region,  and 
the  seaport  of  Damascus  and  of  all  Upper  Syria, 


316  INTO  DAYLIGHT  AGAIN 

the  fitful  and  unintelligent  Turkish  rule  even  can- 
not stifle  its  exuberant  prosperity;  but  above  all 
the  advantages  which  nature  has  given  it,  I  should 
attribute  its  brightest  prospects  to  the  influence  of 
the  American  Mission,  and  to  the  establishment  of 
Beyrout  College.  For  almost  thirty  years  that 
Mission  has  sustained  here  a  band  of  erudite  schol- 
ars, whose  investigations  have  made  the  world 
more  familiar  with  the  physical  character  of  Pales- 
tine than  the  people  of  Connecticut  are  with  the  re- 
sources of  their  own  State,  and  of  wise  managers 
whose  prudence  and  foresight  have  laid  deep  and 
broad  the  foundations  of  a  Syrian  civilization. 

I  do  not  know  how  many  converts  have  been 
made  in  thirty  years,  —  the  East  has  had  ample  il- 
lustration, from  the  Abyssinians  to  the  Colchians, 
of  "conversion  "  without  knowledge  or  civilization, 
—  nor  do  I  believe  that  any  "  reports  "  of  the  work- 
men themselves  to  the  "Board"  can  put  in  visible 
array  adequately  the  results  of  the  American  Mis- 
sion in  Syria.  But  the  transient  visitor  can  see 
something  of  them,  in  the  dawning  of  a  better  so- 
cial life,  in  the  beginning  of  an  improvement  in 
the  condition  of  women,  in  an  unmistakable  spirit 
of  inquiry,  and  a  recognizable  taste  for  intellectual 
pursuits.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  birth 
of  a  desire  for  instruction,  for  the  enjoyment  of  lit- 
erature, and,  to  a  certain  extent,  of  science,  is  due 
to  their  schools;  and  that  their  admirably  con- 
ducted press,  which  has  sent  out  not  only  transla- 
tions of  the  Scriptures,  but  periodicals  of  secular 
literature  and  information,  and  elementary  geog- 


THE    AMERICAN   MISSION  317 

raphies,  histories,  and  scientific  treatises,  has  sat- 
isfied the  want  which  the  schools  created.  And 
this  new  leaven  is  not  confined  to  a  sect,  nor  limited 
to  a  race;  it  is  working,  slowly  it  is  true,  in  the 
whole  of  Syrian  society. 

The  press  establishment  is  near  the  pretty  and 
substantial  church  of  the  Mission ;  it  is  a  busy  and 
well-ordered  printing  and  publishing  house;  send- 
ing out,  besides  its  religious  works  and  school- 
books,  a  monthly  and  a  weekly  publication  and  a 
child's  paper,  which  has  a  large  and  paying  circu- 
lation, a  great  number  of  its  subscribers  being 
Moslems.  These  regenerating  agencies  —  the 
schools  and  the  press  —  are  happily  supplemented 
by  the  college,  which  offers  to  the  young  men  of 
the  Orient  the  chance  of  a  high  education,  and  at- 
tracts students  even  from  the  banks  of  the  Nile. 
We  were  accompanied  to  the  college  by  Dr.  Jessup 
and  Dr.  Post,  and  spent  an  interesting  morning  in 
inspecting  the  buildings  and  in  the  enjoyment  of 
the  lovely  prospect  they  command.  As  it  is  not  my 
desire  to  enter  into  details  regarding  the  Mission 
or  the  college  any  further  than  is  necessary  to  em- 
phasize the  supreme  importance  of  this  enterprise 
to  the  civilization  of  the  Orient,  I  will  only  add 
that  the  college  has  already  some  interesting  col- 
lections in  natural  history,  a  particularly  valuable 
herbarium,  and  that  the  medical  department  is  not 
second  in  promise  to  the  literary. 

It  is  sometimes  observed  that  a  city  is  like  a 
man,  in  that  it  will  preserve  through  all  mutations 
and  disasters  certain  fundamental  traits;  the  char- 


318  INTO  DAYLIGHT  AGAIN 

acter  that  it  obtains  at  first  is  never  wholly  lost, 
but  reappears  again  and  again,  asserting  its  indi- 
viduality after,  it  may  be,  centuries  of  obscurity. 
Beyrout  was  early  a  seat  of  learning  and  a  centre 
of  literary  influence ;  for  nearly  three  hundred  years 
before  its  desolation  by  an  earthquake  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  sixth  century,  and  its  subsequent  devas- 
tation by  the  followers  of  the  Arabian  prophet,  it 
was  thronged  with  students  from  all  the  East,  and 
its  schools  of  philosophy  and  law  enjoyed  the  high- 
est renown.  We  believe  that  it  is  gradually  re- 
suming its  ancient  prestige. 

While  we  were  waiting  day  after  day  the  arrival 
of  the  Austrian  steamboat  for  Constantinople,  we 
were  drawn  into  a  little  drama  which  afforded  us 
alternate  vexation  and  amusement;  an  outline  of 
it  may  not  be  out  of  place  here  as  an  illustration 
of  the  vicissitudes  of  travel  in  the  East,  or  for 
other  reasons  which  may  appear.  I  should  pre- 
mise that  the  American  consul  who  resided  here 
with  his  family  was  not  in  good  repute  with  many 
of  the  foreign  residents ;  that  he  was  charged  with 
making  personal  contributions  to  himself  the  condi- 
tion of  the  continuance  in  office  of  his  sub-agents 
in  Syria;  that  the  character  of  his  dragomans,  or 
at  least  one  of  them  named  Ouardy,  was  exceedingly 
bad,  and  brought  the  consular  office  and  the  Amer- 
ican name  into  contempt;  and  that  these  charges 
had  been  investigated  by  an  agent  sent  from  the 
ministerial  bureau  in  Constantinople.  The  drago- 
mans of  the  consulate,  who  act  as  interpreters,  and 
are  executors  of  the  consul's  authority,  have  no 


AMERICAN   CONSULS  319 

pay,  but  their  position  gives  them  a  consideration 
in  the  community,  and  a  protection  which  they 
turn  to  pecuniary  account.  It  should  be  added 
that  the  salary  of  the  consul  at  Beyrout  is  two  thou- 
sand dollars,  —  a  sum,  in  this  expensive  city,  which 
is  insufficient  to  support  a  consul,  who  has  a  fam- 
ily, in  the  style  of  a  respectable  citizen,  and  is 
wholly  inadequate  to  the  maintenance  of  any  equal- 
ity with  the  representatives  of  other  nations;  the 
government  allows  no  outfit,  nor  does  it  provide 
for  the  return  of  its  consul ;  the  cost  of  transport- 
ing himself  and  family  home  would  consume  almost 
half  a  year's  salary,  and  the  tenure  of  the  office  is 
uncertain.  To  accept  any  of  several  of  our  Ori- 
ental consulships,  a  man  must  either  have  a  pri- 
vate fortune  or  an  unscrupulous  knack  of  living  by 
his  wits.  The  English  name  is  almost  universally 
respected  in  the  East,  so  far  as  my  limited  expe- 
rience goes,  in  the  character  of  its  consuls;  the 
same  cannot  be  said  of  the  American. 

The  morning  after  our  arrival,  descending  the 
steps  of  the  hotel,  I  found  our  dragoman  in  a  vio- 
lent altercation  with  another  dragoman,  a  Jew, 
and  a  resident  of  Beyrout.  There  is  always  a  la- 
tent enmity  between  the  Egyptian  and  the  Syrian 
dragomans,  a  national  hostility,  as  old  perhaps  as 
the  Shepherds'  invasion,  which  it  needs  only  an 
occasion  to  blow  into  a  flame.  The  disputants 
were  surrounded  by  a  motley  crowd,  nearly  all  of 
them  the  adherents  of  the  Syrian.  I  had  seen 
Antoine  Ouardy  at  Luxor,  when  he  was  the  drag- 
oman of  an  English  traveler,  lie  was  now  in 


320  INTO  DAYLIGHT  AGAIN 

Frank  dress,  wearing  a  shining  hat,  and  an  enor- 
mous cluster  shirt-pin,  and  a  big  seal  ring;  and 
with  his  aggressive  nose  and  brazen  face  he  had 
the  appearance  of  a  leading  mock-auctioneer  in  the 
Bowery.  On  the  Nile,  where  Abd-el-Atti  enjoys 
the  distinction  of  Sultan  among  his  class,  the  fellow 
was  his  humble  servant;  but  he  had  now  caught 
the  Egyptian  away  from  home,  and  was  disposed 
to  make  the  most  of  his  advantage.  Chancing  to 
meet  Ouardy  this  morning,  Abd-el-Atti  had  asked 
for  the  payment  of  two  pounds  lent  at  Luxor ;  the 
debt  was  promptly  denied,  and  when  his  own  due- 
bill  for  the  money  was  produced,  he  declared  that 
he  had  received  the  money  from  Abd-el-Atti  in 
payment  for  some  cigars  which  he  had  long  ago 
purchased  for  him  in  Alexandria.  Of  course  if 
this  had  been  true,  he  would  not  have  given  a  note 
for  the  money;  and  it  happened  that  I  had  been 
present  when  the  sum  was  borrowed. 

The  brazen  denial  exasperated  our  dragoman, 
and  when  I  arrived  the  quarrel  had  come  nearly 
to  blows,  all  the  injurious  Arabic  epithets  having 
been  exhausted.  The  lie  direct  had  been  given 
back  and  forth,  but  the  crowning  insult  was  added, 
in  English,  when  Abd-el-Atti  cried,  — 

"You  're  a  humbug!  " 

This  was  more  than  Ouardy  could  stand. 
Bursting  with  rage,  he  shook  his  fist  in  the  Egyp- 
tian's face: — 

"You  call  me  humbug;  you  hum?;?/*/,  yourself. 
You  pay  for  this,  I  shall  have  satisfaction  by  the 
law." 


A  DRAGOMAN'S  QUARREL  321 

We  succeeded  in  separating  and,  I  hoped,  in 
reducing  them  to  reason,  but  Antoine  went  off 
muttering  vengeance,  and  Abd-el-Atti  was  deter- 
mined to  bring  suit  for  his  money.  I  represented 
the  hopelessness  of  a  suit  in  a  Turkish  court,  the 
delay  and  the  cost  of  lawyers,  and  the  certainty 
that  Ouardy  would  produce  witnesses  to  anything 
he  desired  to  prove. 

"What  I  care  for  two  pound!"  exclaimed  the 
heated  dragoman.  "I  go  to  spend  a  hundred 
pound,  but  I  have  justice." 

Shortly  after,  as  Abd-el-Atti  was  walking 
through  the  bazaars,  with  one  of  the  ladies  of  our 
party,  he  was  set  upon  by  a  gang  of  Ouardy 's 
friends  and  knocked  down ;  the  old  man  recovered 
himself  and  gave  battle  like  a  valiant  friend  of  the 
Prophet;  Ouardy 's  brother  sallied  out  from  his 
shop  to  take  a  hand  in  the  scrimmage,  and  hap- 
pened to  get  a  rough  handling  from  Abd-el-Atti, 
who  was  entirely  ignorant  of  his  relationship  to 
Antoine.  The  whole  party  were  then  carried  off 
to  the  seraglio,  where  Abd-el-Atti,  as  the  party 
attacked,  was  presumed  to  be  in  the  wrong,  and 
was  put  into  custody.  In  the  inscrutable  admin- 
istration of  Turkish  justice,  the  man  who  is 
knocked  down  in  a  quarrel  is  always  arrested. 
When  news  was  brought  to  us  at  the  hotel  of  this 
mishap,  I  sent  for  the  American  consul,  as  our 
dragoman  was  in  the  service  of  an  American  cit- 
izen. The  consul  sent  his  son  and  his  dragoman. 
And  the  dragoman  sent  to  assist  an  American,  em- 
barrassed by  the  loss  of  his  servant  in  a  strange 


322  INTO   DAYLIGHT    AGAIN 

city,  turned  out  to  be  the  brother  of  Antoine 
Ouardy,  and  the  very  fellow  that  Abd-el-Atti  had 
just  beaten.  Here  was  a  complication.  Drago- 
man Ouardy  showed  his  wounds,  and  wanted  com- 
pensation for  his  injuries.  At  the  very  moment 
we  needed  the  protection  of  the  American  govern- 
ment, its  representative  appeared  as  our  chief  pros- 
ecutor. 

However,  we  sent  for  Abd-el-Atti,  and  procured 
his  release  from  the  seraglio;  and  after  an  hour  of 
conference,  in  which  we  had  the  assistance  of  some 
of  the  most  respectable  foreign  residents  of  the 
city,  we  flattered  ourselves  that  a  compromise  was 
made.  The  injured  Ouardy,  who  was  a  crafty 
rogue,  was  persuaded  not  to  insist  upon  a  suit  for 
damages,  which  would  greatly  incommode  an 
American  citizen,  and  Abd-el-Atti  seemed  willing 
to  drop  his  suit  for  the  two  pounds.  Antoine, 
however,  was  still  menacing. 

"You  heard  him,"  he  appealed  to  me,  "you 
heard  him  call  me  humbug." 

The  injurious  nature  of  this  mysterious  epithet 
could  not  be  erased  from  his  mind.  It  was  in  vain 
that  I  told  him  it  had  been  freely  applied  to  a 
well-known  American,  until  it  had  become  a  badge 
of  distinction.  But  at  length  a  truce  was  patched 
up;  and,  confident  that  there  would  be  no  more 
trouble,  I  went  into  the  country  for  a  long  walk 
over  the  charming  hills. 

When  I  returned  at  six  o'clock,  the  camp  was 
in  commotion.  Abd-el-Atti  was  in  jail!  There 
was  a  suit  against  him  for  20,000  francs  for  horri- 


ABD-EL-ATTI    IN   JAIL  323 

ble  and  unprovoked  injuries  to  the  dragoman  of 
the  American  consul!  The  consul,  upon  written 
application  for  assistance,  made  by  the  ladies  at 
the  hotel,  had  curtly  declined  to  give  any  aid,  and 
espoused  the  quarrel  of  his  dragoman.  It  ap- 
peared that  Abd-el-Atti,  attempting  again  to  ac- 
company a  lady  in  a  shopping  expedition  through 
the  bazaars,  had  been  sent  for  by  a  messenger 
from  the  seraglio.  As  he  could  not  leave  the  lady 
in  the  street,  he  carelessly  answered  that  he  would 
come  by  and  by.  A  few  minutes  after,  he  was  ar- 
rested by  a  squad  of  soldiers,  and  taken  before  the 
military  governor.  Abd-el-Atti  respectfully  made 
his  excuse  that  he  could  not  leave  the  lady  alone 
in  the  street,  but  the  pasha  said  that  he  would 
teach  him  not  to  insult  his  authority.  Both  the 
Ouardy  brothers  were  beside  the  pasha,  whispering 
in  his  ear,  and  as  the  result  of  their  deliberations 
Abd-el-Atti  was  put  in  prison.  It  was  Saturday 
afternoon,  and  the  conspirators  expected  to  humil- 
iate the  old  man  by  keeping  him  locked  up  till 
Monday.  This  was  the  state  of  the  game  when  I 
came  to  dinner;  the  faithful  Abdullah,  who  had 
reluctantly  withdrawn  from  watching  the  outside 
of  the  seraglio  where  his  master  was  confined,  was 
divided  in  mind  between  grief  and  alarm  011  the 
one  side  and  his  duty  of  habitual  cheerfulness  to 
us  on  the  other,  and  consequently  announced, 
"Abd-el-Atti,  seraglio,"  as  a  piece  of  good  news; 
the  affair  had  got  wind  among  the  cafes,  where 
there  was  a  buzz  of  triumph  over  the  Egyptians ; 
and  at  the  hotel  everybody  was  drawn  into  the 


324  INTO    DAYLIGHT   AGAIN 

excitement,  discussing  the  assault  and  the  arrest 
of  the  assaulted  party,  the  American  consul  and  the 
character  of  his  dragoman,  and  the  general  inability 
of  American  consuls  to  help  their  countrymen  in 
time  of  need. 

The  principal  champion  of  Abd-el-Atti  was  Mo- 
hammed Achmed,  the  dragoman  of  two  American 
ladies  who  had  been  traveling  in  Egypt  and  Pal- 
estine. Achmed  was  a  character.  He  had  the 
pure  Arab  physiognomy,  the  vivacity  of  an  Italian, 
the  restlessness  of  an  American,  the  courtesy  of  the 
most  polished  Oriental,  and  a  unique  use  of  the 
English  tongue.  Copious  in  speech,  at  times 
flighty  in  manner,  gravely  humorous,  and  more 
sharp-witted  than  the  "cutest"  Yankee,  he  was  an 
exceedingly  experienced  and  skillful  dragoman,  and 
perfectly  honest  to  his  employers.  Achmed  was 
clad  in  baggy  trousers,  a  silk  scarf  about  his  waist, 
short  open  jacket,  and  wore  his  tarboosh  on  the 
back  of  his  sloping  head.  He  had  a  habit  of 
throwing  back  his  head  and  half  closing  his  wan- 
dering, restless  black  eyes  in  speaking,  and  his 
gestures  and  attitudes  might  have  been  called  the- 
atrical but  for  a  certain  simple  sincerity ;  yet  any 
extravagance  of  speech  or  action  was  always  saved 
from  an  appearance  of  absurdity  by  a  humorous 
twinkle  in  his  eyes.  Alexandria  was  his  home, 
while  Abd-el-Atti  lived  in  Cairo ;  the  natural  ri- 
valry between  the  dragomans  of  the  two  cities  had 
been  imbittered  by  some  personal  disagreement, 
and  they  were  only  on  terms  of  the  most  distant 
civility.  But  Abd-el-Atti 's  misfortune  not  only 


ACHMED'S  ZEAL  325 

roused  his  national  pride,  but  touched  his  quick 
generosity,  and  he  surprised  his  employers  by  the 
enthusiasm  with  which  he  espoused  the  cause  and 
defended  the  character  of  the  man  he  had  so  lately 
regarded  as  anything  but  a  friend.  He  went  to 
work  with  unselfish  zeal  to  procure  his  release; 
he  would  think  of  nothing  else,  talk  of  nothing 
else. 

"How  is  it,  Achmed,"  they  said,  "that  you  and 
Abd-el-Atti  have  suddenly  become  such  good 
friends?" 

"Ah,  my  lady,"  answers  Achmed,  taking  an 
attitude,  "you  know  not  Abd-el-Atti,  one  of  the 
firste-class  men  in  all  Egypt.  Not  a  common 
dragoman  like  these  in  Beyrout,  my  lady;  you 
shall  ask  in  Cairo  what  a  man  of  esteem.  To  tell 
it  in  Cairo  that  he  is  in  jail!  Abd-el-Atti  is  my 
friend.  What  has  been  sometime,  that  is  nothing. 
It  must  not  be  that  he  is  in  jail.  And  he  come 
out  in  half  an  hour,  'if  your  consul  say  so." 

"That  is  not  so  certain;  but  what  can  we  do?  " 

"  Write  to  the  consul  American  that  he  shall  let 
Abd-el-Atti  go.  You,  my  lady,"  said  Achmed, 
throwing  himself  on  his  knees  before  the  person 
he  was  addressing,  "make  a  letter,  and  say  I  want 
my  dragoman  immediate.  If  he  will  not,  I  go  to 
the  English  consul,  I  know  he  will  do  it.  Excuse 
me,  but  will  you  make  the  letter?  When  it  was 
the  English  consul,  he  does  something;  when  it 
was  the  American,  I  pick  your  pargin,  my  lady, 
he  is  not  so  much  esteem  here." 

In  compliance  with  Achmed 's  entreaty  a  note 


326  INTO    DAYLIGHT   AGAIN 

was  written  to  the  consul,  but  it  produced  no 
effect,  except  an  uncivil  reply  that  it  was  after 
office  hours. 

When  I  returned,  Achmed  was  in  a  high  fever 
of  excitement.  He  believed  that  Abd  -  el  -  Atti 
would  be  released  if  I  would  go  personally  to  the 
consul  and  insist  upon  it. 

"The  consul,  I  do  not  know  what  kind  of  man 
this  is  for  consul ;  does  he  know  what  man  is  Abd- 
el-Atti?  Take  my  advice,"  continued  Achmed, 
half  closing  his  eyes,  throwing  back  his  head  and 
moving  it  alertly  on  the  axis  of  his  neck,  and  mak- 
ing at  the  same  time  a  deprecatory  gesture  with 
the  back  of  his  hands  turned  out,  —  "take  my  ad- 
vice, Mesr.  Vahl,  Abd-el-Atti  is  a  man  of  respect; 
he  is  a  man  very  rich,  God  forgive  me !  Firste- 
class  man.  There  is  no  better  family  in  Egypt 
than  Abd-el-Atti  Effendi.  You  have  seen,  he  is 
the  friend  of  governors  and  pashas.  There  is  no 
man  of  more  respect.  In  Cairo,  to  put  Abd-el- 
Atti  in  jail,  they  would  not  believe  it!  When  he 
is  at  home,  no  one  could  do  it.  The  Khedive  him- 
self," he  continued,  warming  with  his  theme, 
"would  not  touch  Abd-el-Atti.  He  has  houses  in 
the  city  and  farms  and  plantations  in  the  country, 
a  man  very  well  known.  Who  in  Cairo  is  to  put 
him  in  jail?  [This,  with  a  smile  of  derision.]  I 
think  he  take  out  and  put  in  prison  almost  any- 
body else  he  like,  Mohammed  Effendi  Abd-el-Atti. 
See,  when  this  Ouardy  comes  in  Egypt!  " 

We  hastened  to  the  consul's.  I  told  the  consul 
that  I  was  deprived  of  the  service  of  my  dragoman, 


AT   THE   CONSULATE  327 

that  he  was  unjustly  imprisoned,  simply  for  defend- 
ing himself  when  he  was  assailed  by  a  lot  of  row- 
dies, and  that  as  the  complaint  against  him  was 
supposed  to  issue  from  the  consulate,  I  doubted  not 
that  the  consul's  influence  could  release  him.  The 
consul  replied,  with  suavity,  that  he  had  nothing 
to  do  with  the  quarrel  of  his  dragoman,  and  was 
not  very  well  informed  about  it,  only  he  knew  that 
Ouardy  had  been  outrageously  assaulted  and  beaten 
by  Abd-el- Atti ;  that  he  could  do  nothing  at  any 
rate  with  the  pasha,  even  if  that  functionary  had 
not  gone  to  his  harem  outside  the  city,  where  no- 
body would  disturb  him.  I  ventured  to  say  that 
both  the  Ouardys  had  a  very  bad  reputation  in  the 
city,  —  it  was,  in  fact,  infamous,  —  and  that  the 
consulate  was  brought  into  contempt  by  them. 
The  consul  replied  that  the  reputation  of  Antoine 
might  be  bad,  but  that  his  dragoman  was  a  respec- 
table merchant;  and  then  he  complained  of  the 
missionaries,  who  had  persecuted  him  ever  since 
he  had  been  in  Beyrout.  I  said  that  I  knew  no- 
thing of  his  grievances ;  that  my  information  about 
his  dragoman  came  from  general  report,  and  from 
some  of  the  bankers  and  most  respectable  citizens, 
and  that  I  knew  that  in  this  case  my  dragoman 
had  been  set  upon  in  the  first  instance,  and  that  it 
was  believed  that  the  Ouardys  were  now  attempt- 
ing to  extort  money  from  him,  knowing  him  to  be 
rich,  and  having  got  him  in  their  clutches  away 
from  his  friends.  The  consul  still  said  that  he 
could  do  nothing  that  night;  he  was  very  sorry, 
very  sorry  for  my  embarrassment,  and  he  would 


328  INTO    DAYLIGHT   AGAIN 

send  for  Ouardy  and  advise  him  to  relinquish  his 
prosecution  on  my  account.  "Very  well,"  I  said, 
rising  to  go,  "if  you  cannot  help  me,  I  must  go 
elsewhere.  Will  you  give  me  a  note  of  introduc- 
tion to  the  pasha?"  He  would  do  that  with  plea- 
sure, although  he  was  certain  that  nothing  would 
come  of  it. 

Achmed,  who  had  been  impatiently  waiting  on 
the  high  piazza  (it  is  a  charming  situation  over- 
looking the  Mediterranean),  saw  that  I  had  not 
succeeded,  and  was  for  going  at  once  to  the  Eng- 
lish consul;  for  all  dragomans  have  entire  confi- 
dence that  English  consuls  are  all-powerful. 

"No,"  I  said,  "we  will  try  the  pasha,  to  whom 
I  have  a  letter,  though  the  consul  says  the  pasha 
is  a  friend  of  Ouardy." 

"I  believe  you.  Ouardy  has  women  in  his 
house ;  the  pasha  goes  often  there ;  so  I  hear.  But 
we  will  go.  I  will  speak  to  the  pasha  also,  and 
tell  him  what  for  a  man  is  Abd-el-Atti.  A  very 
pleasant  man,  the  pasha,  and  speak  all  languages, 
very  well  English." 

It  was  encouraging  to  know  this,  and  I  began 
to  feel  that  I  could  make  some  impression  on  him. 
We  took  a  carriage  and  drove  into  the  suburbs,  to 
the  house  of  the  pasha.  His  Excellency  was  in 
his  harem,  and  dining,  at  that  hour.  I  was  shown 
by  a  bare-footed  servant  into  a  barren  parlor  fur- 
nished in  the  European  style,  and  informed  that 
the  pasha  would  see  me  presently.  After  a  while 
cigarettes  and  coffee  —  a  poor  substitute  for  dinner 
for  a  person  who  had  had  none  —  were  brought  in ; 


INTERVIEW   WITH    THE    PASHA  329 

but  no  pasha.  I  waited  there,  I  suppose,  nearly 
an  hour  for  the  governor  to  finish  his  dinner ;  and 
meantime  composed  a  complimentary  oration  to 
deliver  upon  his  arrival.  When  his  Excellency 
at  last  appeared,  I  beheld  a  large,  sleek  Turk, 
whose  face  showed  good-nature  and  self-indulgence. 
I  had  hopes  of  him,  and,  advancing  to  salute  hirn, 
began  an  apology  for  disturbing  his  repose  at  this 
unseasonable  hour,  but  his  Excellency  looked  per- 
fectly blank.  He  did  not  understand  a  word  of 
English.  I  gave  him  the  letter  of  the  consul,  and 
mentioned  the  name  "American  Consul."  The 
pasha  took  the  letter  and  opened  it;  but  as  he 
was  diligently  examining  it  upside  down,  I  saw 
that  he  did  not  read  English.  I  must  introduce 
myself. 

Opening  the  door,  I  called  A  chined.  In  coming 
into  the  presence  of  this  high  rank,  all  his  buoy- 
ancy and  bravado  vanished;  he  obsequiously 
waited.  I  told  him  to  say  to  his  Excellency  how 
extremely  sorry  I  was  to  disturb  his  repose  at  such 
an  unseasonable  hour,  but  that  my  dragoman, 
whose  services  I  needed,  had  been  unfortunately 
locked  up ;  that  I  was  an  American  citizen,  as  he 
would  perceive  by  the  letter  from  the  consul,  and 
that  I  would  detain  him  only  a  moment  with  my 
business.  Achmed  put  this  into  choice  Arabic. 
His  Excellency  looked  more  blank  than  before. 
He  did  not  understand  a  word  of  Arabic.  The  in- 
terview was  getting  to  be  interesting. 

The  pasha  then  stepped  to  the  door  and  called 
in  his  dragoman,  a  bare-footed  fellow  in  a  tattered 


.330  INTO    DAYLIGHT   AGAIN 

gown.  The  two  interpreters  stood  in  line  before 
us,  and  the  pasha  nodded  to  me  to  begin.  I  opened, 
perhaps,  a  little  too  elaborately ;  Achmed  put  my 
remarks  into  Arabic,  and  the  second  dragoman 
translated  that  again  into  Turkish.  What  the 
speech  became  by  the  time  it  reached  the  ear  of 
the  pasha  I  could  not  tell,  but  his  face  darkened 
at  once,  and  he  peremptorily  shook  his  head.  The 
word  came  back  to  me  that  the  pasha  would  n't  let 
him  out;  Abd-el-Atti  must  stay  in  jail  till  his 
trial.  I  then  began  to  argue  the  matter,  —  to  say 
that  there  was  no  criminal  suit  against  him,  only 
an  action  for  damages,  and  that  I  would  be  re- 
sponsible for  his  appearance  when  required.  The 
translations  were  made ;  but  I  saw  that  I  was  every 
moment  losing  ground ;  no  one  could  tell  what  my 
solicitations  became  after  being  strained  through 
Arabic  and  Turkish.  My  case  was  lost,  because 
it  could  not  be  heard. 

Suddenly  it  occurred  to  me  that  the  pasha  might 
know  some  European  language.  I  turned  to  him, 
and  asked  him  if  he  spoke  German.  Oh,  yes !  The 
prospect  brightened,  and  if  I  also  had  spoken  that 
language,  we  should  have  had  no  further  trouble. 
However,  desperation  beat  up  my  misty  recollec- 
tion, and  I  gave  the  pasha  a  torrent  of  broken 
German  that  evidently  astonished  him.  At  any 
rate,  he  became  gracious  as  soon  as  he  understood 
me.  He  said  that  Abd-el-Atti  was  not  confined 
on  account  of  the  suit,  —  he  knew  nothing  and 
cared  nothing  for  his  difficulty  with  Ouardy,  — • 
but  for  his  contempt  of  the  police  and  soldiers.  1 


DELIVERANCE  331 

explained  that,  and  added  that  Abd-el-Atti  was 
an  old  man,  that  I  had  been  doctoring  him  for  a 
fever  ever  since  we  were  in  Damascus,  that  I  feared 
to  have  him  stay  in  that  damp  jail  over  Sunday, 
and  that  I  would  be  responsible  for  his  appear- 
ance. 

"Do  you  mean  to  say,"  he  asked,  "that  you  will 
be  personally  responsible  that  he  appears  at  the 
seraglio  Monday  morning?" 

"Certainly,"  I  said,  "for  his  appearance  at  any 
time  and  place  your  Excellency  may  name." 

"Then  he  may  go."  Pie  gave  the  order  to  his 
dragoman  to  accompany  us  and  procure  his  release, 
and  we  retired,  with  mutual  protestations  of  the 
highest  consideration.  Achmed  was  nearly  beside 
himself  with  joy.  The  horses  seemed  to  him  to 
crawl;  he  could  n't  wait  the  moment  to  announce 
to  Abd-el-Atti  his  deliverance.  "  Ah,  they  thought 
to  keep  Abd-el-Atti  in  jail  all  night,  and  sent 
word  to  Caiyo,  'Abd-el-Atti  is  in  jail.'  Abd-el- 
Atti  Effendi!  Take  my  ad  vice,  a  man  of  respect." 

The  cobble  -  paved  court  of  the  old  seraglio 
prison,  to  which  the  guards  admitted  us  without 
question,  was  only  dimly  lighted  by  an  oil-lamp 
or  two,  and  we  could  distinguish  a  few  figures  flit- 
ting about,  who  looked  like  malefactors,  but  were 
probably  keepers.  We  were  shown  into  a  side 
room,  where  sat  upon  the  ground  an  official,  per- 
haps a  judge,  and  two  assistants.  Abd-el-Atti 
was  sent  for.  The  old  man  was  brought  in,  swing- 
ing his  string  of  beads  in  his  hand,  looking  some- 
what crestfallen,  but  preserving  a  portentous  grav- 


332  INTO    DAYLIGHT    AGAIN 

ity.  I  arose  and  shook  hands  with  him,  and  told 
him  we  had  come  to  take  him  out.  When  we  were 
seated,  a  discussion  of  the  case  sprung  up :  the  offi- 
cial talked,  his  two  assistants  talked,  and  Abd-el- 
Atti  and  Achmed  talked,  and  there  was  evidently 
a  disposition  to  go  over  the  affair  from  the  begin- 
ning. It  was  a  pit}r  to  cut  short  so  much  elo- 
quence, but  I  asked  the  pasha's  dragoman  to  de- 
liver his  message,  and  told  Achmed  that  we  would 
postpone  the  discussion  till  Monday,  and  depart 
at  once.  The  prisoner  was  released,  and,  declin- 
ing coffee,  we  shook  hands  and  got  away  with  all 
haste.  As  we  drove  to  the  hotel,  Abd-el-Atti  was 
somewhat  pensive,  but  declared  that  he  would 
rather  give  a  hundred  pounds  than  not  be  let  out 
that  night;  and  when  we  reached  home,  Achmed, 
whose  spirits  were  exuberant,  insisted  on  dragging 
him  to  the  cafe  opposite,  to  exhibit  him  in  tri- 
umph. 

When  I  came  down  in  the  morning,  Achmed 
was  in  the  hall. 

"Well,  Achmed,  how  are  you?" 

"Firste-class,"  closing  his  eyes  with  a  humorous 
twinkle.  "I  'm  in  it  now." 

"In  what?" 

"In  the  case  with  Mohammed  Abd-el-Atti. 
That  Ouardy  says  I  pay  him  damage  twenty  thou- 
sand francs.  Twenty  thousand  francs,  I  wish  he 
may  get  it!  How  much,  I  s'pose,  for  the  consul? 
Take  my  advice,  the  consul  want  money." 

"Then  the  suit  will  keep  you  here  with  Abd-el- 
Atti?" 


THRIFTY   DRAGOMANS  333 

"Keep,  I  don't  know.  I  not  pay  him  twenty 
thousand  francs,  not  one  thousand,  not  one  franc. 
What  my  ladies  do  ?  Who  go  to  Constantinople 
with  my  ladies?  To-morrow  morning  come  the 
steamer.  To  leave  the  old  man  alone  with  these 
thiefs,  what  would  anybody  say  of  Mohammed 
Achmed  for  that?  What  for  consul  is  this?  I 
want  to  go  to  Constantinople  with  my  ladies,  and 
then  to  see  my  family  in  Alexandria.  For  one 
day  in  five  months  have  I  see  my  wife  and  shild. 
Oh  yes,  I  have  a  very  nice  wife.  Yes,  one  wife 
quite  plenty  for  me.  And  I  have  a  fine  house, 
cost  me  twenty  thousand  dollars ;  I  am  not  rich, 
but  I  have  plenty,  God  forgive  me.  My  shop  is 
in  the  silk  bazaar.  I  am  merchant.  My  father- 
in-law  say  what  for  I  go  dragoman?  I  like  to 
see  nice  peoples  and  go  in  the  world.  W^hen  I  am 
dragoman,  I  am  servant.  When  I  am  merchant, 
oh,  I  am  very  well  in  Alexandria.  I  think  I  not 
go  any  more.  Ah,  here  is  Abd-el-Atti.  Take  my 
advice,  he  not  need  to  be  dragoman ;  he  is  pooty 
off.  Good  morning,  my  friend.  Have  they  told 
you  I  am  to  be  put  in  jail  also?" 

"So  I  hear;  Ouardy  sue  you  and  Abdallah  so 
you  cannot  be  witness." 

"  Oh,  they  think  they  get  money  from  us.  Mebbe 
the  pasha  and  the  consul.  I  think  so." 

"So  am  I,"  responded  Abd-el-Atti  in  his  most 
serious  manner.  The  "Eastern  question,"  with 
these  experienced  dragomans,  instantly  resolves 
itself  into  a  question  of  money,  whoever  is  con- 
cerned and  whatever  is  the  tribunal.  I  said  that 


334  INTO    DAYLIGHT   AGAIN 

I  would  see  the  consul  in  the  morning,  and  that  I 
hoped  to  have  all  proceedings  stopped,  so  that  we 
could  get  off  in  the  steamer.  Abd-el-Atti  shook 
his  head. 

"The  consul  not  to  do  anything.  Ouardy  have 
lent  him  money;  so  I  hunder stood." 

Beyrout  had  a  Sunday  appearance.  The  shops 
were  nearly  all  closed,  and  the  churches,  espe- 
cially the  Catholic,  were  crowded.  It  might  have 
been  a  peaceful  day  but  for  our  imbroglio,  which 
began  to  be  serious;  we  could  not  afford  the  time 
to  wait  two  weeks  for  the  next  Cyprus  steamer,  we 
did  not  like  to  abandon  our  dragomans,  and  we 
needed  their  services.  The  ladies  who  depended 
upon  Achmed  were  in  a  quandary.  Notes  went  to 
the  consul,  but  produced  no  effect.  The  bankers 
were  called  into  the  council,  and  one  of  them  un- 
dertook to  get  Achmed  free.  Travelers,  citizens, 
and  all  began  to  get  interested  or  entangled  in 
the  case.  There  was  among  respectable  people 
but  one  opinion  about  the  consul's  dragoman.  At 
night  it  was  whispered  about  that  the  American 
consul  had  already  been  removed  and  that  his  suc- 
cessor was  on  his  way  to  Beyrout.  Achmed  came 
to  us  in  the  highest  spirits  with  the  news. 

All  day  Monday  we  expected  the  steamer.  The 
day  was  frittered  away  in  interviews  with  the  con- 
sul and  the  pasha,  and  in  endeavoring  to  learn 
something  of  the  two  cases,  the  suit  for  damage 
and  for  the  debt,  supposed  to  be  going  on  some- 
where in  the  seraglio.  After  my  interview  with 
the  consul,  who  expressed  considerable  ignorance 


A   TURKISH   COUNT  335 

of  the  case  and  the  strongest  desire  to  stop  it,  I 
was  surprised  to  find  at  the  seraglio  all  the  papers 
in  the  consul's  name,  and  all  the  documents  written 
on  consular  paper ;  so  that  when  I  appeared  as  an 
American  citizen,  to  endeavor  to  get  my  dragoman 
released,  it  appeared  to  the  Turkish  officials  that 
they  would  please  the  American  government  by 
detaining  and  punishing  him. 

The  court-room  was  a  little  upper  chamber,  with 
no  furniture  except  a  long  table  and  chairs ;  three 
Moslem  judges  sat  at  one  end  of  the  table,  appar- 
ently waiting  to  see  what  would  turn  up.  The 
scene  was  not  unlike  that  in  an  office  of  a  justice 
of  the  peace  in  America.  The  parties  to  the  case, 
witnesses,  attendants,  spectators,  came  and  went  as 
it  pleased  them,  talked  or  whispered  to  the  judges 
or  to  each  other.  There  seemed  to  be  no  rule  for 
the  reception  or  rejection  of  evidence.  The  judges 
smoked  and  gathered  the  facts  as  they  drifted  in, 
and  would  by  and  by  make  up  their  minds.  It  is 
truth  to  say,  however,  that  they  seemed  to  be  en- 
deavoring to  get  at  the  facts,  ami  that  they  ap- 
peared to  be  above  prejudice  or  interest.  A  new 
complication  developed  itself,  however;  Antoine 
Ouardy  claimed  to  be  a  French  citizen,  and  the 
French  consul  was  drawn  into  the  fray.  This  was 
a  new  device  to  delay  proceedings. 

\\  hen  I  had  given  my  evidence  to  the  judges, 
which  I  was  required  to  put  in  writing,  I  went 
with  Abd-el-Atti  to  the  room  of  the  pasha.  This 
official  was  gracious  enough,  but  gave  us  no  hopes 
of  release.  lie  took  me  one  side  and  advised  me. 


336  INTO   DAYLIGHT   AGAIN 

as  a  traveler,  to  look  out  for  another  dragoman ; 
there  was  no  prospect  that  Abd-el-Atti  could  get 
away  to  accompany  me  on  this  steamer,  —  in  fact, 
the  process  in  court  might  detain  him  six  months. 
However,  the  best  thing  to  do  would  be  to  go  to 
the  American  consul  with  Ouardy  and  settle  it. 
He  thought  Ouardy  would  settle  it  for  a  reasonable 
amount.  It  was  none  of  his  business,  but  that 
was  his  advice.  We  were  obliged  to  his  Excel- 
lency for  this  glimpse  behind  the  scenes  of  a  Turk- 
ish court,  and  thanked  him  for  his  advice;  but 
we  did  not  follow  it.  Abd-el-Atti  thought  that 
if  he  abandoned  the  attempt  to  collect  a  debt  in  a 
Turkish  city,  he  ought  not,  besides,  to  pay  for  the 
privilege  of  doing  so. 

Tuesday  morning  the  steamer  came  into  the  har- 
bor. Although  we  had  registered  our  names  at 
the  office  of  the  company  for  passage,  nothing  was 
reserved  for  us.  Detained  at  the  seraglio  and  the 
consul's,  we  could  not  go  off  to  secure  places,  and 
the  consequence  was  that  we  were  subject  to  the 
blackmail  of  the  steward  when  we  did  go.  By  noon 
there  were  signs  of  the  failure  of  the  prosecution; 
and  we  sent  off  our  luggage.  In  an  hour  or  two 
Abd-el-Atti  appeared  with  a  troop  of  friends,  tri- 
umphant. Somewhere,  I  do  not  know  how,  he 
and  Achmed  had  raked  up  fourteen  witnesses  in 
his  favor;  the  judges  wouldn't  believe  Ouardy 
nor  any  one  he  produced,  and  his  case  had  utterly 
broken  down.  This  mountain  of  a  case,  which  had 
annoyed  us  so  many  days  and  absorbed  our  time, 
suddenly  collapsed.  We  were  not  sorry  to  leave 


OFF    FOB    CYPRUS  337 

even  beautiful  Beyrout,  and  would  have  liked  to 
see  the  last  of  Turkish  rule  as  well.  At  sunset, 
on  the  steamer  Achille,  swarming  above  and'  be- 
low with  pilgrims  from  Jerusalem  and  Mecca,  we 
sailed  for  Cyprus. 


XVIII 

CYPRUS 

N  the  early  morning  we  were  off  Cy- 
prus, in  the  open  harbor  of  Larnaka, — 
a  row  of  white  houses  on  the  lew  shore. 
The  town  is  not  peculiar  and  not  spe- 
cially attractive,  but  the  Marina  lies  prettily  on 
the  blue  sea,  and  the  palms,  the  cypresses,  the 
minarets  and  church-towers,  form  an  agreeable 
picture  behind  it,  backed  by  the  lovely  outline  of 
mountains,  conspicuous  among  them  Santa  Croce. 
The  highest,  Olympus,  cannot  be  seen  from  this 
point. 

A  night  had  sufficed  to  transport  us  into  another 
world,  a  world  in  which  all  outlines  are  softened 
and  colored,  a  world  in  which  history  appears  like 
romance.  We  might  have  imagined  that  we  had 
sailed  into  some  tropical  harbor,  except  that  the 
island  before  us  was  bare  of  foliage ;  there  was  the 
calm  of  perfect  repose  in  the  sky,  on  the  sea,  and 
the  land;  Cyprus  made  no  harsh  contrast  with  the 
azure  water  in  which  it  seemed  to  be  anchored  for 
the  morning,  as  our  ship  was.  You  could  be- 
lieve that  the  calm  of  summer  and  of  early  morn- 
ing always  rested  on  the  island,  and  that  it  slept 
exhausted  in  the  memory  of  its  glorious  past. 


THE   LOCANDA  339 

Taking  a  cup  of  coffee,  we  rowed  ashore.  It 
yas  the  festival  of  St.  George,  and  the  flags  of 
various  nations  were  hung  out  along  the  riva,  or 
displayed  from  the  staffs  of  the  consular  residences. 
It  is  one  of  the  chief  fete  days  of  the  year,  and  the 
foreign  representatives,  who  have  not  too  much 
excitement,  celebrated  it  by  formal  visits  to  the 
Greek  consul.  Larnaka  does  not  keep  a  hotel, 
and  we  wandered  about  for  some  time  before  we 
could  discover  its  sole  locanda,  where  we  purposed 
to  breakfast.  This  establishment  would  please  an 
artist,  but  it  had  few  attractions  for  a  person  wish- 
ing to  break  his  fast,  and  our  unusual  demand 
threw  it  into  confusion.  The  locanda  was  nothing 
but  a  kitchen  in  a  tumble-down  building,  smoke- 
dried,  with  an  earth  floor  and  a  rickety  table  or 
two.  After  long  delay,  the  cheerful  Greek  pro- 
prietor and  his  lively  wife  —  whose  good-humored 
willingness  both  to  furnish  us  next  to  nothing,  but 
the  best  they  had,  from  their  scanty  larder,  and  to 
cipher  up  a  long  reckoning  for  the  same,  excited 
our  interest  —  produced  some  fried  veal,  sour 
bread,  harsh  wine,  and  tart  oranges ;  and  we  break- 
fasted more  sumptuously,  I  have  no  doubt,  than 
any  natives  of  the  island  that  morning.  The  scant 
and  hard  fare  of  nearly  all  the  common  people  in 
the  East  would  be  unendurable  to  any  American ; 
but  I  think  that  the  hardy  peasantry  of  the  Levant 
would  speedily  fall  into  dyspeptic  degeneracy  upon 
the  introduction  of  American  rural  cooking. 

After  we  had  killed  our  appetites  at  the  locanda, 
we  presented  our  letters  to  the  American  consul, 


340  CYPRUS 

General  di  Cesnola,  in  whose  spacious  residence 
we  experienced  a  delightful  mingling  of  Orien- 
tal and  Western  hospitality.  The  kawass  of  the 
General  was  sent  to  show  us  the  town.  This 
kawass  was  a  gorgeous  official,  a  kind  of  glorified 
being,  in  silk  and  gold-lace,  who  inarched  before 
us,  huge  in  bulk,  waving  his  truncheon  of  office, 
and  gave  us  the  appearance,  in  spite  of  our  humil- 
ity, of  a  triumphal  procession.  Larnaka  has  not 
many  sights,  although  it  was  the  residence  of  the 
Lusignan  dynasty,  —  Richard  Cceur  de  Lion  hav- 
ing, toward  the  close  of  the  twelfth  century,  made 
a  gift  of  the  island  to  Guy  de  Lusignan.  It  has, 
however,  some  mosques  and  Greek  churches.  The 
church  of  St.  Lazarus,  which  contains  the  now  va- 
cant tomb  of  the  Lazarus  who  was  raised  from  the 
dead  at  Bethany  and  afterwards  became  bishop  of 
Citium,  is  an  interesting  old  Byzantine  edifice,  and 
has  attached  to  it  an  English  burial-ground,  with 
tombs  of  the  seventeenth  century.  The  Greek 
priest  who  showed  us  the  church  does  not  lose  sight 
of  the  gain  of  godliness  in  this  life,  while  pursuing 
in  this  remote  station  his  heavenly  journey.  He 
sold  my  friend  some  exquisite  old  crucifixes,  carved 
in  wood,  mounted  in  antique  silver,  which  he  took 
from  the  altar,  and  he  let  the  church  part  with 
some  of  its  quaint  old  pictures,  commemorating 
the  impossible  exploits  of  St.  Demetrius  and  St. 
George.  But  he  was  very  careful  that  none  of  the 
Greeks  who  were  lounging  about  the  church  should 
be  witnesses  of  the  transfer.  He  said  that  these 
ignorant  people  had  a  prejudice  about  these  sacred 
objects,  and  might  make  trouble. 


CHITTIM  341 

The  excavations  made  at  Larnaka  have  demon- 
strated that  this  was  the  site  of  ancient  Citium, 
the  birthplace  of  Zeno,  the  Stoic,  and  the  Chittim 
so  often  alluded  to  by  the  Hebrew  prophets ;  it  was 
a  Phosnician  colony,  and  when  Ezekiel  foretold  the 
unrecoverable  fall  of  Tyre,  among  the  luxuries  of 
wealth  he  enumerated  were  the  "benches  of  ivory 
brought  out  of  the  isles  of  Chittim."  Paul  does 
not  mention  it,  but  he  must  have  passed  through 
it  when  he  made  his  journey  over  the  island  from 
Salamis  to  Paphos,  where  he  had  his  famous  en- 
counter with  the  sorcerer  Bar-jesus.  A  few  miles 
out  of  town  on  the  road  to  Citti  is  a  Turkish 
mosque,  which  shares  the  high  veneration  of  Mos- 
lems with  those  of  Mecca  and  Jerusalem.  In  it  is 
interred  the  wet-nurse  of  Mohammed. 

We  walked  on  out  of  the  town  to  the  most  con- 
siderable church  in  the  place,  newly  built  by  the 
Roman  Catholics.  There  is  attached  to  it  a  Fran- 
ciscan convent,  a  neat  establishment  with  a  gar- 
den; and  the  hospitable  monks,  when  they  knew 
we  were  Americans,  insisted  upon  entertaining  us ; 
the  contributions  for  their  church  had  largely  come 
from  America,  they  said,  and  they  seemed  to  re- 
gard us  as  among  the  number  of  their  benefactors. 
This  Christian  charity  expressed  itself  also  in  some 
bunches  of  roses,  which  the  brothers  plucked  for 
our  ladies.  One  cannot  but  suspect  and  respect 
that  timid  sentiment  the  monk  retains  for  the  sex 
whose  faces  he  flies  from,  which  he  expresses  in  the 
care  of  flowers ;  the  blushing  rose  seems  to  be  the 
pure  and  only  link  between  the  monk  and  woman- 


342  CYPRUS 

kind ;  he  may  cultivate  it  without  sin,  and  offer  it 
to  the  chance  visitor  without  scandal. 

The  day  was  lovely,  but  the  sun  had  intense 
power,  and  in  default  of  donkeys  we  took  a  private 
carriage  into  the  country  to  visit  the  church  of  St. 
George,  at  which  the  fete  day  of  that  saint  was 
celebrated  by  a  fair,  and  a  concourse  of  peasants. 
Our  carriage  was  a  four-wheeled  cart,  a  sort  of 
hay -wagon,  drawn  by  two  steers,  and  driven  by  a 
Greek  boy  in  an  embroidered  jacket.  The  Fran- 
ciscans lent  us  chairs  for  the  cart;  "the  resplen- 
dent kawass  marched  ahead ;  Abd-el-Atti  hung  his 
legs  over  the  tail  of  the  cart  in  an  attitude  of 
dejection;  and  we  moved  on,  but  so  slowly  that 
my  English  friend,  Mr.  Edward  Rae,  was  able 
to  sketch  us,  and  the  Cyprians  could  enjoy  the 
spectacle. 

The  country  lay  bare  and  blinking  under  the 
sun;  save  here  and  there  a  palm  or  a  bunch  of 
cypresses,  this  part  of  the  island  has  not  a  tree  or 
a  large  shrub.  The  view  of  the  town  and  the  sea 
with  its  boats,  as  we  went  inland,  was  peculiar, 
not  anything  real,  but  a  skeleton  picture ;  the  sky 
and  sea  were  indigo  blue.  We  found  a  crowd  of 
peasants  at  the  church  of  St.  George,  which  has  a 
dirty  interior,  like  all  the  Greek  churches.  The 
Greeks,  as  well  as  the  other  Orientals,  knew  how 
to  mingle  devotion  with  the  profits  of  trade,  and 
while  there  were  rows  of  booths  outside,  and  traffic 
went  on  briskly,  the  church  was  thronged  with 
men  and  women  who  bought  tapers  for  offerings, 
and  kissed  with  fervor  the  holy  relics  which  were 


THE    PA  PHI  AN    VENUS  343 

exposed.  The  articles  for  sale  at  the  booths  and 
stands  were  chiefly  eatables  and  the  coarsest  sort  of 
merchandise.  The  only  specialty  of  native  man- 
ufacture was  rude  but  pleasant-sounding  little 
bells,  which  are  sometimes  strung  upon  the  necks 
of  donkeys.  But  so  fond  are  these  simple  people 
of  musical  noise,  that  these  bells  are  attached  to 
the  handles  of  sickles  also.  The  barley  was  al- 
ready dead-ripe  in  the  fields,  and  many  of  the 
peasants  at  the  fair  brought  their  sickles  with 
them.  They  were,  both  men  and  women,  a  good- 
humored,  primitive  sort  of  people,  certainly  not  a 
handsome  race,  but  picturesque  in  appearance ;  both 
sexes  affect  high  colors,  and  the  bright  petticoats 
of  the  women  matched  the  gay  jackets  of  their 
husbands  and  lovers. 

We  do  not  know  what  was  the  ancient  stan- 
dard of  beauty  in  Cyprus ;  it  may  have  been  no 
higher  than  it  is  now,  and  perhaps  the  swains  at 
this  fete  of  St.  George  would  turn  from  any  other 
type  of  female  charms  as  uninviting1.  The  Cy- 
prian or  Paphian  Vemis  could  not  have  been  a 
beauty  according  to  our  notions.  The  images  of 
her  which  General  di  Cesnola  found  in  her  temple 
all  have  a  long  and  sharp  nose.  These  images  are 
Phoenician,  and  were  made  six  hundred  to  a  thou- 
sand years  before  the  Christian  era,  at  the  time 
that  wonderful  people  occupied  this  fertile  island. 
It  is  an  interesting  fact,  and  an  extraordinary  in- 
stance of  the  persistence  of  nature  in  perpetuating 
a  type,  that  all  the  women  of  Cyprus  to-day  —  who 
are,  with  scarcely  any  exception,  ugly  —  have  ex- 


344  CYPRUS 

actly  the  nose  of  the  ancient  Paphian  Venus,  that 
is  to  say,  the  nose  of  the  Phoenician  women  whose 
husbands  and  lovers  sailed  the  Mediterranean  as 
long  ago  as  the  siege  of  Troy. 

It  was  off  the  southern  coast  of  this  island,  near 
Paphos,  that  Venus  Aphrodite,  born  of  the  foam, 
is  fabled  to  have  risen  from  the  sea.  The  anni- 
versary of  her  birth  is  still  perpetuated  by  an  an- 
nual fete  on  the  llth  of  August,  —  a  rite  having 
its  foundation  in  nature,  that  has  proved  to  be 
stronger  than  religious  instruction  or  prejudice. 
Originally,  these  fetes  were  the  scenes  of  a  too  lit- 
eral worship  of  Venus,  and  even  now  the  Cyprian 
maiden  thinks  that  her  chance  of  matrimony  is 
increased  by  her  attendance  at  this  annual  fair. 
Upon  that  day  all  the  young  people  go  upon  the 
sea  in  small  boats,  and,  until  recently,  it  used  to 
be  the  custom  to  dip  a  virgin  into  the  water  in 
remembrance  of  the  mystic  birth  of  Venus.  That 
ceremony  is  still  partially  maintained;  instead  of 
sousing  the  maiden  in  the  sea,  her  companions 
spatter  the  representative  of  the  goddess  with  salt 
water,  — immersion  has  given  way  here  also  to 
sprinkling. 

The  lively  curiosity  of  the  world  has  been  of  late 
years  turned  to  Cyprus  as  the  theatre  of  some  of 
the  most  important  and  extensive  archaeological 
discoveries  of  this  century ;  discoveries  unique,  and 
illustrative  of  the  manners  and  religion  of  a  race, 
once  the  most  civilized  in  the  Levant,  of  which 
only  the  slightest  monuments  had  hitherto  been 
discovered ;  discoveries  which  supply  the  lost  link 


A   COVETED   PRIZE  345 

between  Egyptian  and  Grecian  art.  These  splen- 
did results,  which  by  a  stroke  of  good  fortune  con- 
fer some  credit  upon  the  American  nation,  are 
wholly  due  to  the  scholarship,  patient  industry, 
address,  and  enthusiasm  of  one  man.  To  those 
who  are  familiar  with  the  magnificent  Cesnola  Col- 
lection, which  is  the  chief  attraction  of  the  Metro- 
politan Museum  of  New  York,  I  need  make  no 
apology  for  devoting  a  few  paragraphs  to  the  an- 
tiquities of  Cyprus  and  their  explorer. 

Cyprus  was  the  coveted  prize  of  all  the  conquer- 
ors of  the  Orient  in  turn.  The  fair  island,  with 
an  area  not  so  large  as  the  State  of  Connecticut, 
owns  in  its  unequal  surface  the  extremes  of  the 
temperate  climate;  snow  lies  during  the  greater 
part  of  the  year  upon  its  mountains,  which  attain 
an  altitude  of  over  seven  thousand  feet,  and  the 
palm  spreads  its  fan -leaves  along  the  southern 
coast  and  in  the  warm  plains ;  irregular  in  shape, 
it  -has  an  extreme  length  of  over  one  hundred  and 
forty  miles,  and  an  average  breadth  of  about  forty 
miles,  and  its  deeply  indented  coast  gives  an  ex- 
traordinarily long  shore-line  and  offers  the  facili- 
ties of  harbors  for  the  most  active  commerce. 

The  maritime  Pho3nicians  early  discovered  its 
advantages,  and  in  the  seventeenth  century  B.  c., 
or  a  little  later,  a  colony  from  Sidon  settled  at 
Citium;  and  in  time  these  Yankees  of  the  Levant 
occupied  all  the  southern  portion  of  the  island  with 
their  busy  ports  and  royal  cities.  There  is  a  tra- 
dition that  Teucer,  after  the  Trojan  war,  founded 
the  city  of  Salamis  on  the  east  coast.  But  how- 


346  CYPRUS 

ever  this  may  be,  and  whatever  may  be  the  exact 
date  of  the  advent  of  the  Sidonians  upon  the 
island,  it  is  tolerably  certain  that  they  were  in 
possession  about  the  year  1600  B.  c.,  when  the  navy 
of  Thotmes  III. ,  the  greatest  conqueror  and  states- 
man in  the  long  line  of  Pharaohs,  visited  Cyprus 
and  collected  tribute.  The  Egyptians  were  never 
sailors,  and  the  fleet  of  Thotmes  III.  was  no  doubt 
composed  of  Phoenician  ships  manned  by  Phoeni- 
cian sailors.  He  was  already  in  possession  of  the 
whole  of  Syria,  the  Phoenicians  were  his  tributa- 
ries and  allies,  their  ships  alone  sailed  the  Grecian 
seas  and  carried  the  products  of  Egypt  and  of  Asia 
to  the  Pelasgic  populations.  The  Phoenician 
supremacy  established  by  Sidon  in  Cyprus  was 
maintained  by  Tyre ;  and  it  was  not  seriously  sub- 
verted until  708  B.  c.,  when  the  Assyrian  ravager 
of  Syria,  Sargon,  sent  a  fleet  and  conquered  Cy- 
prus. He  set  up  a  stele  in  Citium,  commemorat- 
ing his  exploit,  which  has  been  preserved  and  is 
now  in  the  museum  at  Berlin.  Two  centuries  later 
the  island  owned  the  Persians  as  masters,  and  was 
comprised  in  the  fifth  satrapy  of  Darius.  It  be- 
came a  part  of  the  empire  of  the  Macedonian 
Alexander  after  his  conquest  of  Asia  Minor,  and 
was  again  an  Egyptian  province  under  the  Ptole- 
mies, until  the  lloman  eagles  swooped  down  upon 
it.  Coins  are  not  seldom  found  that  tell  the  story 
of  these  occupations.  Those  bearing  the  head  of 
Ptolemy  Physcon,  Euergetes  VII.,  found  at  Pa- 
phos  and  undoubtedly  struck  there,  witness  the 
residence  on  the  island  of  that  licentious  and  lit- 


ANTIQUITIES  347 

erary  tyrant,  whom  a  popular  outburst  had  ban- 
ished from  Alexandria.  Another  with  the  head 
of  Vespasian,  and  on  the  obverse  an  outline  of  the 
temple  of  Venus  at  Paphos,  attests  the  Roman 
hospitality  to  the  gods  and  religious  rites  of  all 
their  conquered  provinces. 

Upon  the  breaking  up  of  the  Roman  world, 
Cyprus  fell  to  the  Greek  Empire,  and  for  centu- 
ries maintained  under  its  ducal  governors  a  sort  of 
independent  life,  enjoying  as  much  prosperity  as 
was  possible  under  the  almost  uniform  imbecility 
and  corruption  of  the  Byzantine  rule.  We  have 
already  spoken  of  its  transfer  to  the  Lusignans 
by  Richard  Coeur  de  Lion ;  and  again  a  romantic 
chapter  was  added  to  its  history  by  the  reign  of 
Queen  Catharine  Cornaro,  who  gave  her  kingdom 
to  the  Venetian  republic.  Since  its  final  conquest 
by  the  Turks  in  1571,  Cyprus  has  interested  the 
world  only  by  its  sufferings;  for  Turkish  history 
here,  as  elsewhere,  is  little  but  a  record  of  exac- 
tions, rapine,  and  massacre. 

From  time  to  time  during  the  present  century 
efforts  have  been  made  by  individuals  and  by 
learned  societies  to  explore  the  antiquities  of  Cy- 
prus; but  although  many  interesting  discoveries 
were  made,  yet  the  field  was  comparatively  virgin 
when  General  di  Cesnola  was  appointed  American 
consul  in  1866.  Here  and  there  a  stele,  or  some 
fragments  of  pottery,  or  the  remains  of  a  temple, 
had  been  unearthed  by  chance  or  by  superficial 
search,  but  the  few  objects  discovered  served  only 
to  pique  curiosity.  For  one  reason  or  another,  the 


348  CYPRUS 

efforts  made  to  establish  the  site  of  ancient  cities 
had  been  abandoned,  the  expeditions  sent  out  by 
France  had  been  comparatively  barren  of  results, 
and  it  seemed  as  if  the  traces  of  the  occupation 
of  the  Phoenicians,  the  Egyptians,  the  Assyrians, 
the  Persians,  and  the  Romans  were  irrecoverably 
concealed. 

General  L.  P.  di  Cesnola,  the  explorer  of  Cy- 
prus, is  of  a  noble  Piedmontese  family ;  he  received 
a  military  and  classical  education  at  Turin ;  iden- 
tified with  the  party  of  Italian  unity,  his  sympa- 
thies were  naturally  excited  by  the  contest  in 
America;  he  offered  his  sword  to  our  government, 
and  served  with  distinction  in  the  war  for  the 
Union.  At  its  close  he  was  appointed  consul  at 
Cyprus,  a  position  of  no  pecuniary  attraction,  but 
I  presume  that  the  new  consul  had  in  view  the 
explorations  which  have  given  his  name  such  hon- 
orable celebrity  in  both  hemispheres. 

The  difficulties  of  his  undertaking  were  many. 
He  had  to  encounter  at  every  step  the  jealousy  of 
the  Turkish  government,  and  the  fanaticism  and 
superstition  of  the  occupants  of  the  soil.  Archa> 
ological  researches  are  not  easy  in  the  East  under 
the  most  favorable  circumstances,  and  in  places 
where  the  traces  of  ancient  habitations  are  visible 
above  ground,  and  ancient  sites  are  known ;  but  in 
Cyprus  no  ruins  exist  in  sight  to  aid  the  explorer, 
and,  with  the  exception  of  one  or  two  localities,  no 
names  of  ancient  places  are  known  to  the  present 
generation.  But  the  consul  was  convinced  that 
the  great  powers  which  had  from  age  to  age  held 


STATUE   OF    HERCULES   AT  CONSTANTINOPLE   MUSEUM 


GENERAL   DI    CESNOLA  349 

Cyprus  must  have  left  some  traces  of  their  occupa- 
tion, and  that  intelligent  search  would  discover  the 
ruins  of  the  prosperous  cities  described  by  Strabo 
and  mentioned  by  the  geographer  Ptolemy.  With- 
out other  guides  than  the  descriptions  of  these  and 
other  ancient  writers,  the  consul  began  his  search 
in  1867,  and  up  to  1875  he  had  ascertained  the 
exact  sites  of  eleven  ancient  cities  mentioned  by 
Strabo  and  Ptolemy,  most  of  which  had  ceased  to 
exist  before  the  Christian  era,  and  none  of  which 
has  left  vestiges  above  the  soil. 

In  the  time  of  David  and  of  Solomon,  the  Phoa- 
nicians  formed  the  largest  portion  of  the  popula- 
tion of  the  island;  their  royal  cities  of  Paphos, 
Amathus,  Carpassa,  Citium,  and  Ammochosto, 
were  in  the  most  flourishing  condition.  Not  a 
stone  remained  of  them  above  ground ;  their  sites 
were  unknown  in  1867. 

When  General  di  Cesnola  had  satisfied  himself 
of  the  probable  site  of  an  ancient  city  or  temple, 
it  was  difficult  to  obtain  permission  to  dig,  even 
with  the  authority  of  the  Sultan's  firman.  He 
was  obliged  to  wait  for  harvests  to  be  gathered,  in 
some  cases,  to  take  a  lease  of  the  ground ;  some- 
times the  religious  fanaticism  of  the  occupants 
could  not  be  overcome,  and  his  working  parties 
were  frequently  beaten  and  driven  away  in  his  ab- 
sence. But  the  consul  exhibited  tact,  patience, 
energy,  the  qualities  necessary,  with  knowledge, 
to  a  successful  explorer.  He  evaded  or  cast  down 
all  obstacles. 

In  1868  he  discovered  the  uecropoli  of  Ledra, 


350  CYPRUS 

Citium,  and  Idalium,  and  opened  during  three 
years  in  these  localities  over  ten  thousand  tombs, 
bringing  to  light  a  mass  of  ancient  objects  of  art 
which  enable  us  to  understand  the  customs,  reli- 
gion, and  civilization  of  the  earlier  inhabitants. 
Idalium  was  famous  of  old  as  the  place  where  Gre- 
cian pottery  was  first  made,  and  fragments  of  it 
have  been  found  from  time  to  time  on  its  site. 

In  1869  and  1870  he  surveyed  Aphrodisium, 
in  the  northeastern  part  of  the  island,  and  ascer- 
tained, in  the  interior,  the  site  of  Golgos,  a  city 
known  to  have  been  in  existence  before  the  Trojan 
war.  The  disclosures  at  this  place  excited  both 
the  wonder  and  the  incredulity  of  the  civilized 
world,  and  it  was  not  until  the  marvelous  collec- 
tion of  the  explorer  was  exhibited,  partially  in 
London,  but  fully  in  New  York,  that  the  vast  im- 
portance of  the  labors  of  General  di  Cesnola  began 
to  be  comprehended.  In  exploring  the  necropolis 
of  Golgos,  he  came,  a  few  feet  below  the  soil,  upon 
the  remains  of  the  temple  of  Venus,  strewn  with 
mutilated  sculptures  of  the  highest  interest,  supply- 
ing the  missing  link  between  Egyptian  and  Greek 
art,  and  indeed  illustrating  the  artistic  condition 
of  most  of  the  Mediterranean  nations  during  the 
period  from  about  1200  to  about  500  B.  c.  It 
would  require  too  much  space  to  tell  how  the  Brit- 
ish Museum  missed  and  the  Metropolitan  of  New 
York  secured  this  first  priceless  u  Cesnola  Collec- 
tion." Suffice  it  to  say,  that  it  was  sold  to  a  gen- 
erous citizen  of  New  York,  Mr.  John  Taylor  John- 
son, for  fifty  thousand  dollars,  —  a  smn  which 


EXPLORATIONS  351 

would  not  compensate  the  explorer  for  his  time  and 
labor,  and  would  little  more  than  repay  his  pecu- 
niary outlay,  which  reached  the  amount  of  over 
sixty  thousand  dollars  in  1875.  But  it  was  enough 
that  the  treasure  was  secured  by  his  adopted  coun- 
try; the  loss  of  it  to  the  Old  World,  which  was 
publicly  called  an  "European  misfortune,"  was  a 
piece  of  good  fortune  to  the  United  States,  which 
time  will  magnify. 

From  1870  to  1872  the  general's  attention  was 
directed  to  the  southwestern  portion  of  the  island, 
and  he  laid  open  the  necropoli  of  Marium,  Paphos, 
Alamas,  and  Soli,  and  three  ancient  cities  whose 
names  are  yet  unknown.  In  1873  lie  explored 
and  traced  the  cities  of  Throni,  Leucolla,  and  Ar- 
sinoe,  and  the  necropoli  of  several  towns  still  un- 
known. In  1874  and  1875  he  brought  to  light  the 
royal  cities  of  Amathus  and  Curium,  and  located 
the  little  town  of  Kury. 

It  would  not  be  possible  here  to  enumerate  all 
the  objects  of  art  or  worship,  and  of  domestic  use, 
which  these  excavations  have  yielded.  The  statu- 
ary and  the  thousands  of  pieces  of  glass,  some  of 
them  rivaling  the  most  perfect  Grecian  shapes  in 
form,  and  excelling  the  Venetian  colors  in  the  iri- 
descence of  age,  perhaps  attract  most  attention  in 
the  Metropolitan  Museum.  From  the  tombs  were 
taken  thousands  of  vases  of  earthenware,  some  in 
alabaster  and  bronze,  statuettes  in  terra-cotta, 
arms,  coins,  scarabaei,  cylinders,  intaglios,  cameos, 
gold  ornaments,  and  mortuary  Ktde*.  In  the 
temples  were  brought  to  light  inscriptions,  bas- 


352  CYPRUS 

reliefs,  architectural  fragments,  and  statues  of  the 
different  nations  who  have  conquered  and  occupied 
the  island.  The  inscriptions  are  in  the  Egyptian, 
Assyrian,  Phoenician,  Greek,  and  Cypriote  lan- 
guages; the  last-mentioned  being,  in  the  opinion 
of  the  explorer,  an  ancient  Greek  dialect. 

At  Curium,  nineteen  feet  below  the  surface  of 
the  ground,  were  found  the  remains  of  the  Temple 
of  Apollo  Hylates;  the  sculptures  contained  in  it 
belong  to  the  Greek  period  from  700  to  100  B.  C. 
At  Amathus  some  royal  tombs  were  opened,  and 
two  marble  sarcophagi  of  large  dimensions,  one  of 
them  intact,  were  discovered,  which  are  historically 
important,  and  positive  additions  to  the  remains 
of  the  best  Greek  art. 

After  Golgos,  Paleo  Paphos  yielded  the  most  in- 
teresting treasures.  Here  existed  a  temple  to  the 
Paphian  Venus,  whose  birthplace  was  in  sight  of 
its  portals,  famous  throughout  the  East;  devotees 
and  pilgrims  constantly  resorted  to  it,  as  they  do 
now  to  the  shrines  of  Mecca  and  Jerusalem.  Not 
only  the  maritime  adventurers  and  traders  from 
Asia  Minor  and  the  Grecian  mainland  crowded  to 
the  temple  of  this  pleasing  and  fortunate  goddess, 
and  quitted  their  vows  or  propitiated  her  favor  by 
gifts,  but  the  religious  or  the  superstitious  from 
Persia  and  Assyria  and  farthest  Egypt  deposited 
there  their  votive  offerings.  The  collector  of  a 
museum  of  antiquity  that  should  illustrate  the 
manners  and  religion  of  the  thousand  years  before 
the  Christian  era  could  ask  nothing  better  than 
these  deposits  of  many  races  during  many  centu- 
ries in  one  place. 


INTERESTING   TREASURES  353 

The  excavations  at  Paphos  were  attended  with 
considerable  danger ;  more  than  once  the  workmen 
Were  obliged  to  flee  to  save  their  lives  from  the 
fanatic  Moslems.  The  town,  although  it  has  lost 
its  physical  form,  and  even  its  name  (its  site  is 
now  called  Baffo),-  retains  the  character  of  super- 
stition it  had  when  St.  Paul  found  it  expedient  to 
darken  the  vision  of  Elymas  there,  as  if  a  city, 
like  a  man,  possessed  a  soul  that  outlives  the  body. 
We  spent  the  afternoon  in  examining  the  new 
collection  of  General  di  Cesnola,  not  so  large  as 
that  in  the  Metropolitan  Museum,  but  perhaps 
richer  in  some  respects,  particularly  in  iridescent 
glass. 

In  the  summer  of  1875,  however,  the  labors  of 
the  indefatigable  explorer  were  crowned  with  a 
discovery  the  riches  of  which  cast  into  the  shade 
the  real  or  pretended  treasures  of  the  "House  of 
Priam,"  —  a  discovery  not  certainly  of  more  value 
to  art  than  those  that  preceded  it,  but  well  cal- 
culated to  excite  popular  wonder.  The  finding  of 
this  subterranean  hoard  reads  like  an  adventure 
of  Aladdin. 

In  pursuing  his  researches  at  Curium,  on  the 
southwestern  side  of  the  island,  General  di  Cesnola 
came  upon  the  site  of  an  ancient  temple,  and  un- 
covered its  broken  mosaic  pavement.  Beneath 
this,  and  at  the  depth  of  twenty -five  feet,  he  broke 
into  a  subterranean  passage  cut  in  the  rock.  This 
passage  led  to  a  door ;  no  genie  sat  by  it,  but  it 
was  securely  closed  by  a  stone  slab.  When  this 
was  removed,  a  suite  of  four  rooms  was  disclosed, 


354  CYPRUS 

but  they  were  not  immediately  accessible;  earth 
sifting  through  the  roofs  for  ages  had  filled  them, 
and  it  required  the  labor  of  a  month  to  clean  out 
the  chambers.  Imagine  the  feverish  enthusiasm 
of  the  explorer  as  he  slowly  penetrated  -this  trea- 
sure-house, where  every  stroke  of  the  pick  disclosed 
the  gleam  of  buried  treasure !  In  the  first  room 
were  found  only  gold  objects;  in  the  second  only 
silver  and  silver-gilt  ornaments  and  utensils;  in 
the  third  alabasters,  terra-cottas,  vases,  and  groups 
of  figures ;  in  the  fourth  bronzes,  and  nothing  else. 
It  is  the  opinion  of  the  discoverer  that  these  four 
rooms  were  the  depositories  where  the  crafty  priests 
and  priestesses  of  the  old  temple  used  to  hide  their 
treasures  during  times  of  war  or  sudden  invasion. 
1  cannot  but  think  that  the  mysterious  subterra- 
nean passages  and  chambers  in  the  ancient  temples 
of  Egypt  served  a  similar  purpose.  The  treasure 
found  scattered  in  these  rooms  did  not  appear  to 
be  the  whole  belonging  to  the  temple,  but  only  a 
part,  left  perhaps  in  the  confusion  of  a  hasty  flight. 
Among  the  articles  found  in  the  first  room, 
dumped  in  a  heap  in  the  middle  (as  if  .they  had 
been  suddenly,  in  a  panic,  stripped  from  the  altar 
in  the  temple  and  cast  into  a  place  of  concealment), 
were  a  gold  cup  covered  with  Egyptian  embossed 
work,  and  two  bracelets  of  pure  gold  weighing 
over  three  pounds,  inscribed  with  the  name  of 
"Etevander,  King  of  Paphos."  This  king  lived 
in  635  B.  C.,  and  in  620  B.  c.  paid  tribute  to 
the  Assyrian  monarch  Assurbanapal  (Sardanapa- 
lus),  as  is  recorded  on  an  Assyrian  tablet  now  in 


VOTIVE   OFFERINGS  355 

the  British  Museum.  There  were  also  many 
gold  necklaces,  bracelets,  ear-rings,  finger-rings, 
brooches,  seals,  armlets,  etc.,  in  all  four  hundred 
and  eighty  gold  articles. 

In  the  silver-room,  arranged  on  the  benches  at 
the  sides,  were  vases,  bottles,  cups,  bowls,  brace- 
lets, finger-rings,  ear-rings,  seals,  etc.  One  of 
the  most  curious  and  valuable  objects  is  a  silver- 
gilt  bowl,  having  upon  it  very  fine  embossed  Egyp- 
tian work,  and  evidently  of  high  antiquity. 

In  the  third  room  of  vases  and  terra-cottas  were 
some  most  valuable  and  interesting  specimens. 
The  bronze-room  yielded  several  high  candelabra, 
lamp  -  holders,  lamps,  statuettes,  bulls'  -  heads, 
bowls,  vases,  jugs,  patera,  fibula,  rings,  brace- 
lets, mirrors,  etc.  Nearly  all  the  objects  in  the 
four  rooms  seem  to  have  been  "votive  offerings," 
and  testify  a  pagan  devotion  to  the  gods  not  ex- 
celled by  Christian  generosity  to  the  images  and 
shrines  of  modern  worship.  The  inscriptions  be- 
token the  votive  character  of  these  treasures ;  that 
upon  the  heavy  gold  armlets  is  in  the  genitive 
case,  and  would  be  literally  translated  "Etevandri 
Regis  Paphi,"  the  words  "offering  of"  being  un- 
derstood to  precede  it. 

I  confess  that  the  glitter  of  these  treasures,  and 
the  glamour  of  these  associations  with  the  inge- 
nious people  of  antiquity,  transformed  the  naked 
island  of  Cyprus,  as  we  lay  off  it  in  the  golden 
sunset,  into  a  region  of  all  possibilities,  and  I 
longed  to  take  my  Strabo  and  my  spade  and 
wander  off  prospecting  for  its  sacred  placers.  It 


358  THROUGH    SUMMER    SEAS 

sians  heaped  indiscriminately  together,  —  and  it  is 
very  difficult  to  distinguish  a  Russian  woman  from 
a  bundle  of  old  clothes,  when  she  is  in  repose. 
These  people  travel  with  their  bedding,  their  ba- 
bies, and  their  cooking  utensils,  and  make  a  home 
wherever  they  sit  down. 

The  forward  passengers  have  overflowed  their 
limits  and  extend  back  upon  our  portion  of  the 
deck,  occupying  all  one  side  of  it  to  the  stern,  leav- 
ing the  so-called  privileged  class  only  a  narrow 
promenade  on  the  starboard  side.  These  intruders 
are,  however,  rather  first-class  second-class.  Par- 
ties of  them  are  camped  down  in  small  squares, 
which  become  at  once  miniature  seraglios.  One 
square  is  occupied  by  wealthy  Moslems  from  Da- 
mascus, and  in  another  is  a  stately  person  who  is 
rumored  to  be  the  Prince  of  Damascus.  These 
turbaned  and  silk-clad  Orientals  have  spread  their 
bright  rugs  and  cushions,  and  lounge  here  all  day 
and  sleep  here  at  night;  some  of  them  entertain 
themselves  with  chess,  but  the  most  of  them  only 
smoke  and  talk  little.  Why  should  they  talk? 
has  not  enough  already  been  said  in  the  world? 
At  intervals  during  the  day,  ascertaining,  I  do  not 
know  how,  the  direction  of  Mecca,  these  grave 
men  arise,  spread  their  prayer-carpets,  and  begin 
in  unison  their  kneelings  and  prostrations,  ser- 
vants and  masters  together,  but  the  servants  be- 
hind their  masters.  Next  to  them,  fenced  off  by 
benches,  is  a  harem  square,  occupied  by  veiled 
women,  perhaps  the  wives  of  these  Moslems  and 
perhaps  "some  others."  All  the  deck  is  a  study 
of  brilliant  costume. 


A    MOTLEY    BO  AT- LOAD  359 

A  little  later  the  Oriental  prince  turns  out  to  be 
only  a  Turkish  pasha,  who  has  a  state-room  below 
for  himself,  and  another  for  his  harem;  but  in 
another  compartment  of  our  flower-bed  of  a  deck  is 
a  merchant-prince  of  Damascus,  whose  gorgeous- 
ness  would  impose  upon  people  more  sophisticated 
than  we. 

"He  no  prince;  merchant  like  me,"  explains 
Achmed,  "and  very  rich,  God  be  merciful." 

"But  why  don't  you  travel  about  like  that,  Ach- 
med, and  make  a  fine  display?" 

"For  why?  Anybody  say  Mohammed  Achmed 
any  more  respect?  What  for  I  show  my  rich? 
Take  my  advice.  When  I  am  dragoman,  I  am 
servant ;  and  dress  [here  a  comico-sarcastic  glance 
at  his  plain  but  handsome  dragoman  apparel]  not 
in  monkey  shine,  like  Selim  —  you  remember  him 
—  at  Jaffa,  fierce  like  a  Bedawee.  I  make  busi- 
ness. When  I  am  by  my  house,  that  is  another 
thing." 

The  pasha  has  rooms  below,  and  these  contigu- 
ous squares  on  deck  are  occupied,  the  one  by  his 
suite  and  the  other  by  their  ladies  and  slaves,  all 
veiled  and  presumably  beautiful,  lolling  on  the 
cushions  in  the  ennui  that  appears  to  be  their 
normal  condition.  One  of  them  is  puffing  a  cig- 
arette under  her  white  veil  at  the  risk  of  a  confla- 
gration. One  of  the  slaves,  with  an  olive  com- 
plexion and  dark  eyes,  is  very  pretty,  and  rather 
likes  to  casually  leave  her  face  uncovered  for  the 
benefit  of  the  infidels  who  are  about;  that  her  feet 
and  le<rs  are  bare  she  cares  still  less.  This  harem 


360  THROUGH   SUMMER   SEAS 

is,  however,  encroached  upon  by  Greek  women, 
who  sprawl  about  with  more  freedom,  and  regard 
the  world  without  the  hindrance  of  a  veil.  If  they 
are  not  handsome,  they  are  at  least  not  self-con- 
scious, as  you  would  think  women  would  be  in 
baggy  silk  trousers  and  embroidered  jackets. 

In  the  afternoon  we  came  in  sight  of  the  ancient 
coasts  of  Pamphylia  and  Lycia  and  a  lovely  range 
of  what  we  took  to  be  the  Karamanian  mountains, 
snow-covered  and  half  hid  in  clouds,  all  remote 
and  dim  to  our  vision  as  the  historical  pageant  of 
Assyrian,  Persian,  and  Roman  armies  on  these 
shores  is  to  our  memory.  Eastward  on  that  rug- 
ged coast  we  know  is  Cilicia  and  the  Tarsus  of 
Paul  and  Haroun  al  Raschid.  The  sunset  on  the 
Lycian  mountains  was  glorious;  the  foot  by  the 
water  was  veiled  in  golden  mist;  the  sea  sank 
from  indigo  to  purple,  and  when  the  light  waves 
broke  flecks  of  rose  or  blood  flowed  on  the  surface. 

After  dark,  and  before  we  were  abreast  of  old 
Xanthus,  we  descried  the  famous  natural  light 
which  is  almost  as  mysterious  to  the  moderns  as  it 
was  to  the  ancients.  The  Handbook  says  of  it : 
"About  two  miles  from  the  coast,  through  a  fertile 
plain,  and  then  ascending  a  woody  glen,  the  trav- 
eler arrives  at  the  Zanar,  or  volcanic  flame,  which 
issues  perpetually  from  the  mountain."  Pliny 
says:  "Mount  Chimcera,  near  Phaselis,  emits  an 
unceasing  flame  that  burns  day  and  night."  Cap- 
tain Beaufort  observed  it  from  the  ship  during  the 
night  as  a  small  but  steady  light  among  the  hills. 
We  at  first  mistook  it  for  a  lighthouse.  But  it 


THE   CLASSIC   COAST  361 

was  too  high  above  the  water  for  that,  and  the 
flame  was  too  large;  it  was  rather  a  smoky  radi- 
ance than  a  point  of  light,  and  yet  it  had  a  dull 
red  centre  and  a  duller  luminous  surrounding. 
We  regarded  with  curiosity  and  some  awe  a  flame 
that  had  been  burning  for  over  twenty  centuries, 
and  perhaps  was  alight  before  the  signal-fires  were 
kindled  to  announce  the  fall  of  Troy,  —  Nature's 
own  Pharos  to  the  ancient  mariners  who  were  with- 
out compass  on  these  treacherous  seas. 

Otherwise,  this  classic  coast  is  dark;  extin- 
guished is  the  fire  on  the  altar  of  Apollo  at  Patera, 
silent  is  the  winter  oracle  of  this  god,  and  desolate 
is  the  once  luxurious  metropolis  of  Lycia.  Even 
Xanthus,  the  capital,  a  name  disused  by  the  pres- 
ent inhabitants,  has  little  to  show  of  Greek  culture 
or  Persian  possession,  and  one  must  seek  the  frag- 
ments of  its  antique  art  in  the  British  Museum. 

Coming  on  deck  the  next  morning  at  the  fresh 
hour  of  sunrise,  I  found  we  were  at  Rhodes.  We 
lay  just  off  the  semicircular  harbor,  which  is  clasped 
by  walls  —  partly  shaken  down  by  earthquakes  — 
which  have  noble  round  towers  at  each  embracing 
end.  Rhodes  is,  from  the  sea,  one  of  the  most 
picturesque  cities  in  the  Mediterranean,  although 
it  has  little  remains  of  that  ancient  splendor  which 
caused  Strabo  to  prefer  it  to  Rome  or  Alexandria. 
The  harbor  wall,  which  is  flanked  on  each  side  by 
stout  and  round  stone  windmills,  extends  up  the 
hill,  and,  becoming  double,  surrounds  the  old  town; 
these  massive  fortifications  of  the  Knights  of  St. 
John  have  withstood  the  onsets  of  enemies  and  the 


362  RHODES 

tremors  of  the  earth,  and,  with  the  ancient  moat, 
excite  the  curiosity  of  this  so-called,  peaceful  age 
of  iron-clads  and  monster  cannon.  The  city  as- 
cends the  slope  of  the  hill  and  passes  beyond  the 
wall.  Outside  and  on  the  right  towards  the  sea 
are  a  picturesque  group  of  a  couple  of  dozen  stone 
windmills,  and  some  minarets  and  a  church-tower 
or  two.  Higher  up  the  hill  is  sprinkled  a  little 
foliage,  a  few  mulberry -trees,  and  an  isolated  palm 
or  two ;  and,  beyond,  the  island  is  only  a  mass  of 
broken,  bold,  rocky  mountains.  Of  its  forty -five 
miles  of  length,  running  southwesterly  from  the 
little  point  on  which  the  city  stands,  we  can  see 
but  little. 

Whether  or  not  Rhodes  emerged  from  the  sea 
at  the  command  of  Apollo,  the  Greeks  expressed 
by  this  tradition  of  its  origin  their  appreciation 
of  its  gracious  climate,  fertile  soil,  and  exquisite 
scenery.  From  remote  antiquity  it  had  fame  as 
a  seat  of  arts  and  letters,  and  of  a  vigorous  mari- 
time power,  and  the  romance  of  its  early  centuries 
was  equaled  if  not  surpassed  when  it  became  the 
residence  of  the  Knights  of  St.  John.  I  believe 
that  the  first  impress  of  its  civilization  was  given 
by  the  Phosnicians ;  it  was  the  home  of  the  Dorian 
race  before  the  time  of  the  Trojan  war,  and  its 
three  cities  were  members  of  the  Dorian  Ilexapo- 
lis ;  it  was  in  fact  a  flourishing  maritime  confed- 
eracy, strong  enough  to  send  colonies  to  the  dis- 
tant Italian  coast,  and  Sybaris  and  Parthenope 
(modern  Naples)  perpetuated  the  luxurious  refine- 
ment of  their  founders.  The  city  of  Rhodes  itself 


THE   COLOSSUS  363 

was  founded  about  four  hundred  years  before 
Christ,  and  the  splendor  of  its  palaces,  its  statues 
and  paintings,  gave  it  a  preeminence  among  the 
most  magnificent  cities  of  the  ancient  world.  If 
the  earth  of  this  island  could  be  made  to  yield  its 
buried  treasures  as  Cyprus  has,  we  should  doubt- 
less have  new  proofs  of  the  influence  of  Asiatic 
civilization  upon  the  Greeks,  and  be  able  to  trace 
in  the  early  Doric  arts  and  customs  the  superior 
civilization  of  the  Phoenicians,  and  of  the  masters 
of  the  latter  in  science  and  art,  the  Egyptians. 

Naturally,  every  traveler  who  enters  the  harbor 
of  Rhodes  hopes  to  see  the  site  of  one  of  the  seven 
wonders  of  the  wdrld,  the  Colossus.  He  is  free 
to  place  it  on  either  mole  at  the  entrance  of  the 
harbor,  but  he  comprehends  at  once  that  a  statue 
which  was  only  one  hundred  and  five  feet  high 
could  never  have  extended  its  legs  across  the  port. 
The  fame  of  this  colossal  bronze  statue  of  the  sun 
is  disproportioned  to  the  period  of  its  existence ;  it 
stood  only  fifty -six  years  after  its  erection,  being 
shaken  down  by  an  earthquake  in  the  year  224 
B.  C.,  and  encumbering  the  ground  with  its  frag- 
ments till  the  advent  of  the  Moslem  conquerors. 

When  we  landed,  the  town  was  not  yet  awake, 
except  the  boatmen  and  the  coffee-houses  by  the 
landing-stairs.  The  Greek  boatman,  whom  we 
accepted  as  our  guide,  made  an  unsuccessful  ex- 
cursion for  bread,  finding  only  a  black  uneatable 
mixture,  sprinkled  with  aromatic  seeds;  but  we 
sat  under  the  shelter  of  an  old  sycamore  in  a 
lovely  place  by  the  shore,  and  sipped  our  coffee, 


364  RHODES 

and  saw  the  sun  coining  over  Lycia,  and  shining 
on  the  old  towers  and  walls  of  the  Knights. 

Passing  from  the  quay  through  a  highly  orna- 
mented Gothic  gateway,  we  ascended  the  farnOUS 
historic  street,  still  called  the  Street  of  the  Knights, 
the  massive  houses  of  which  have  withstood  the 
shocks  of  earthquakes  and  the  devastation  of  Sar- 
acenic and  Turkish  occupation.  At  this  hour  the 
street  was  as  deserted  as  it  was  three  centuries  and 
a  half  ago,  when  the  Knights  sorrowfully  sailed 
out  of  the  harbor  in  search  of  a  new  home.  Their 
four  months'  defense  of  the  city,  against  the  over- 
whelming force  of  Suleiman  the  Magnificent,  added 
a  new  lustre  to  their  valor,  and  extorted  the  admi- 
ration of  the  victor  and  the  most  honorable  terms 
of  surrender.  With  them  departed  the  prosperity 
of  Rhodes.  This  street,  of  whose  palaces  we  have 
heard  so  much,  is  not  imposing;  it  is  not  wide,  its 
solid  stone  houses  are  only  two  stories  high,  and 
their  fronts  are  now  disfigured  by  cheap  Arab  bal- 
conies, but  the  facades  are  gray  with  age.  All 
along  are  remains  of  carved  windows.  Gothic 
sculptured  doorways,  and  shields  and  coats  of  arms, 
crosses  and  armorial  legends,  are  set  in  the  walls, 
partially  defaced  by  time  and  accident;  for  the 
Moslems,  apparently  inheriting  the  respect  of  Su- 
leiman for  the  Knights,  have  spared  the  mementos 
of  their  faith  and  prowess.  I  saw  no  inscriptions 
that  are  intact,  but  made  out  upon  one  shield  the 
words  voluntas  mei  est.  The  carving  is  all  beau- 
tiful. 

We  went  through  the  silent  streets,  waking  only 


THE   KNIGHTS   OP   ST.   JOHN  365 

echoes  of  the  past,  out  to  the  ruins  of  the  once  ele- 
gant church  of  St.  John,  which  was  shaken  down 
by  a  powder-explosion  some  thirty  years  ago,  and 
utterly  flattened  by  an  earthquake  some  years  after- 
wards. Outside  the  ramparts  we  met,  and  saluted 
with  the  freedom  of  travelers,  a  gorgeous  Turk  who 
was  taking  the  morning  air,  and  who,  our  guide 
in  bated  breath  said,  was  the  governor.  In  this 
part  of  the  town  is  the  Mosque  of  Suleiman;  in 
the  portal  are  two  lovely  marble  columns,  rich 
with  age;  the  lintels  are  exquisitely  carved  with 
flowers,  arms,  casques,  musical  instruments,  the 
crossed  sword  and  the  torch,  and  the  mandolin, 
perhaps  the  emblem  of  some  troubadour  knight. 
Wherever  we  went  we  found  bits  of  old  carving, 
remains  of  columns,  sections  of  battlemented  roofs. 
The  town  is  saturated  with  the  old  Knights.  Near 
the  mosque  is  a  foundation  of  charity,  a  public 
kitchen,  at  which  the  poor  were  fed  or  were  free 
to  come  and  cook  their  food ;  it  is  in  decay  now, 
and  the  rooks  were  sailing  about  its  old  round- 
topped  chimneys. 

There  are  no  Hellenic  remains  in  the  city,  and 
the  only  remembrance  of  that  past  which  we 
searched  for  was  the  antique  coin,  which  has  upon 
one  side  the  head  of  Medusa  and  upon  the  other 
the  rose  (rJioda)  which  gave  the  town  its  name. 
The  town  was  quiet;  but  in  pursuit  of  this  coin  in 
the  Jews'  quarter  we  started  up  swarms  of  traders, 
were  sent  from  Isaac  to  Jacob,  and  invaded  dark 
shops  and  private  houses  where  Jewish  women  and 
children  were  just  beginning  to  complain  of  the 


366  RHODES 

morning  light.  Our  guide  was  a  jolly  Greek,  who 
was  willing  to  awaken  the  whole  town  in  search  of 
a  silver  coin.  The  traders,  when  we  had  routed 
them  out,  had  little  to  show  in  the  way  of  antiqui- 
ties. Perhaps  the  best  representative  of  the  mod- 
ern manufactures  of  Rhodes  is  the  wooden  shoe, 
which  is  in  form  like  the  Damascus  clog,  but  is 
inlaid  with  more  taste.  The  people  whom  we  en- 
countered in  our  morning  walk  were  Greeks  or 
Jews. 

The  morning  atmosphere  was  delicious,  and  we 
could  well  believe  that  the  climate  of  Rhodes  is  the 
finest  in  the  Mediterranean,  and  also  that  it  is  the 
least  exciting  of  cities. 

"Is  it  always  so  peaceful  here?"  we  asked  the 
guide. 

"Nothing,  if  you  please,"  said  he,  "has  hap- 
pened here  since  the  powder-explosion,  nothing  in 
the  least." 

"And  is  the  town  as  healthy  as  they  say?" 

"Nobody  dies." 

The  town  is  certainly  clean,  if  it  is  in  decay. 
In  one  street  we  found  a  row  of  mulberry-trees 
down  the  centre,  but  they  were  half  decayed,  like 
the  street.  I  shall  always  think  of  Rhodes  as  a 
silent  city ,-— except  in  the  Jews'  quarter,  where 
the  hope  of  selling  an  old  coin  set  the  whole  hive 
humming,  —  and  I  suspect  that  is  its  normal  con- 
dition. 


XX 


AMONG  THE   AEGEAN  ISLANDS 

UR  sail  all  day  among  the  ^Egean  isl- 
ands was  surpassingly  lovely ;  our  course 
was  constantly  changing  to  wind  among 
them ;  their  beautiful  outlines  and  the 
soft  atmosphere  that  enwrapped  them  disposed  us 
to  regard  them  in  the  light  of  Homeric  history, 
and  we  did  not  struggle  against  the  illusion. 
They  are  all  treeless,  and  for  the  most  part  have 
scant  traces  of  vegetation,  except  a  thin  green  grass 
which  seems  rather  a  color  than  a  substance.  Here 
are  the  little  islands  of  Chalce  and  Syme,  once 
seats  of  Grecian  culture,  now  the  abode  of  a  few 
thousand  sponge -fishers.  We  pass  Telos,  and  Ni- 
syros,  which  was  once  ruled  by  Queen  Artemisia, 
and  had  its  share  in  the  fortunes  of  the  wars  of 
Athens  and  Sparta.  It  is  a  small  round  mass 
af  rock,  but  it  rises  twenty -two  hundred  feet  out 
of  the  sea,  and  its  volcanic  soil  is  favorable  to  the 
grape.  Opposite  is  the  site  of  the  ruins  of  Cnidus, 
a  Dorian  city  of  great  renown,  and  famous  for  its 
shrine  of  Venus,  and  her  statue  by  Praxiteles. 
We  get  an  idea  of  the  indentation  of  this  coast  of 
Asia  Minor  (and  its  consequent  accessibility  to 


368  AMONG   THE  AEGEAN   ISLANDS 

early  settlement  and  civilization)  from  the  fact  that 
Cnidus  is  situated  on  a  very  narrow  peninsula 
ninety  miles  long. 

Kos  is  celebrated  not  only  for  its  size,  loveli- 
ness, and  fertility,  but  as  the  birthplace  of  Apelles 
and  of  Hippocrates;  the  inhabitants  still  venerate 
an  enormous  plane-tree  under  which  the  good  physi- 
cian is  said  to  have  dispensed  his  knowledge  of 
healing.  The  city  of  Kos  is  on  a  fine  plain,  which 
gradually  slopes  from  the  mountain  to  the  sea  and 
is  well  covered  with  trees.  The  attractive  town 
lies  prettily  along  the  shore,  and  is  distinguished 
by  a  massive  square  mediaeval  fortress,  and  by 
round  stone  windmills  with  specially  long  arms. 

As  we  came  around  the  corner  of  Kos,  we  had  a 
view,  distant  but  interesting,  of  the  site  of  Hali- 
carnassus,  the  modern  town  of  Boudroum,  with  its 
splendid  fortress,  which  the  Turks  wrested  from 
the  Knights  of  St.  John.  We  sail  by  it  with  re- 
gret, for  the  student  and  traveler  in  the  East 
comes  to  have  a  tender  feeling  for  the  simple  na- 
ture of  the  father  of  history,  and  would  forego 
some  other  pleasant  experiences  to  make  a  pilgrim- 
age to  the  birthplace  of  Herodotus.  Here,  also, 
was  born  the  historian  Dionysius.  And  here,  a 
few  years  ago,  were  identified  the  exact  site  and 
i-escued  the  remains  of  another  of  the  Seven  Won- 
ders, the  Tomb  of  Mausolus,  built  in  honor  of  her 
husband  by  the  Carian  Artemisia,  who  sustained 
to  him  the  double  relation  of  sister  and  queen. 
This  monument,  which  exhibited  the  perfection  of 
Greek  art,  was  four  hundred  and  eleven  feet  in 


PATMOS  369 

circumference  and  one  hundred  and  forty  feet  high. 
It  consisted  of  a  round  building,  surrounded  by 
thirty-six  columns  surmounted  by  a  pyramid,  and 
upon  the  latter  stood  a  colossal  group  of  a  chariot 
and  four  horses.  Some  of  the  beautiful  sculpture 
of  this  mausoleum  can  be  seen  in  the  British 
Museum. 

We  were  all  the  afternoon  endeavoring  to  get 
sight  of  Patinos,  which  the  intervening  islands  hid 
from  view.  Every  half  hour  some  one  was  discov- 
ering it,  and  announcing  the  fact.  No  doubt  half 
the  passengers  will  go  to  their  graves  comforted  by 
the  belief  that  they  saw  it.  Some  of  them  actually 
did  have  a  glimpse  of  it  towards  night,  between  the 
islands  of  Lipso  and  Arid.  It  is  a  larger  island 
than  we  expected  to  see ;  and  as  we  had  understood 
that  the  Revelations  were  written  on  a  small  rocky 
island,  in  fact  a  mere  piece  of  rock,  the  feat  seemed 
less  difficult  on  a  good-sized  island.  Its  height  is 
now  crowned  by  the  celebrated  monastery  of  St. 
John,  but  the  island  is  as  barren  and  uninviting 
as  it  was  when  the  Romans  used  it  as  a  place  of 
banishment. 

We  passed  Astypataea,  Kalyminos,  Leros,  and 
a  sprinkling  of  islets  (as  if  a  giant  -had  sown  this 
sea  with  rocks),  each  of  which  has  a  history,  or  is 
graced  by  a  legend ;  but  their  glory  is  of  the  past. 
The  chief  support  of  their  poor  inhabitants  is  now 
the  sponge-fishery.  At  sunset  we  had  before  us 
Icaria  and  Samos,  and  on  the  mainland  the  site 
of  Miletus,  now  a  fever-smitten  place,  whose  vast 
theatre  is  almost  the  sole  remains  of  the  metropolis 


370  AMONG   THE    AEGEAN    ISLANDS 

of  the  Ionic  confederacy.  Perhaps  the  centre  of 
Ionic  art  and  culture  was,  however,  the  island  of 
Samos,  but  I  doubt  not  the  fame  of  its  Samian 
wine  has  carried  its  name  further  than  the  exploits 
of  its  warriors,  the  works  of  its  artists,  or  the 
thoughts  of  its  philosophers.  It  was  the  birthplace 
of  Pythagoras;  it  was  once  governed  by  Poly- 
crates;  there  for  a  time  Antony  and  Cleopatra 
established  their  court  of  love  and  luxury.  In  the 
evening  we  sailed  close  under  its  high  cliffs,  and 
saw  dimly  opposite  Icaria,  whose  only  merit  or 
interest  lies  in  its  association  with  the  ill-judged 
aerial  voyage  of  Icarus,  the  son  of  Daedalus. 

Although  the  voyager  amid  these  islands  and 
along  this  historic;  coast  profoundly  feels  the  influ- 
ence of  the  past,  and,  as  he  reads  and  looks  and 
reflects,  becomes  saturated  with  its  half -mysterious 
and  delicious  romance,  he  is  nevertheless  scarcely 
able  to  believe  that  these  denuded  shores  and  pur- 
ple, rocky  islets  were  the  homes  of  heroes,  the  the- 
atres of  world-renowned  exploits,  the  seats  of  wealth 
and  luxury  and  power ;  that  the  marble  of  splendid 
temples  gleamed  from  every  summit  and  headland ; 
that  rich  cities  clustered  on  every  island  and  studded 
the  mainland ;  and  that  this  region,  bounteous  in 
the  fruits  of  the  liberal  earth,  was  not  less  prolific 
in  vigorous  men  and  beautiful  women,  who  planted 
adventurous  and  remote  colonies,  and  sowed  around 
the  Mediterranean  the  seeds  of  our  modern  civili- 
zation. In  the  present  desolation  and  soft  decay 
it  is  difficult  to  recall  the  wealth,  the  diversified 
industry,  the  martial  spirit,  the  refinement  of  the 


THE    BEGINNINGS    OF   OUR   ERA  371 

races  whose  art  and  literature  are  still  our  emula- 
tion and  despair.  Here,  indeed,  were  the  begin- 
nings of  our  era,  of  our  modern  life,  —  separated 
by  a  great  gulf  from  the  ancient  civilization  of  the 
Nile,  —  the  life  of  the  people,  the  attempts  at  self- 
government,  the  individual  adventure,  the  new 
development  of  human  relations  consequent  upon 
commerce,  and  the  freer  exchange  of  products  and 
ideas. 

What  these  islands  and  this  variegated  and 
genial  coast  of  Asia  Minor  might  become  under  a 
government  that  did  not  paralyze  effort  and  rob 
industry,  it  is  impossible  to  say;  but  the  impres- 
sion is  made  upon  the  traveler  that  Nature  herself 
is  exhausted  in  these  regions,  and  that  it  will  need 
the  rest  or  change  of  a  geologic  era  to  restore  her 
pristine  vigor.  The  prodigality  and  avarice  of 
thousands  of  years  have  left  the  land  —  now  that 
the  flame  of  civilization  has  burned  out  —  like  the 
crater  of  an  extinct  volcano.  But  probably  it  is 
society  and  not  nature  that  is  dead.  The  island  of 
Rhodes,  for  an  example,  might  in  a  few  years  of 
culture  again  produce  the  forests  that  once  supplied 
her  hardy  sons  with  fleets  of  vessels,  and  her  genial 
soil,  under  any  intelligent  agriculture,  would  yield 
abundant  harvests.  The  land  is  now  divided  into 
petty  holdings,  and  each  poor  proprietor  scratches 
it  just  enough  to  make  it  yield  a  scanty  return. 

During  the  night  the  steamer  had  come  to  Chios 
(Scio),  and  I  rose  at  dawn  to  see  —  for  we  had  no 
opportunity  to  land  —  the  spot  almost  equally 
famous  as  the  birthplace  of  Homer  and  the  land 


372  AMONG   THE   AEGEAN   ISLANDS 

of  the  Chian  wine.  The  town  lies  along  the  water 
for  a  mile  or  more  around  a  shallow  bay  opening 
to  the  east,  a  city  of  small  white  houses,  relieved 
by  a  minaret  or  two;  close  to  the  water's  edge  are 
some  three-story  edifices,  and  in  front  is  an  ancient 
square  fort,  which  has  a  mole  extending  into  the 
water,  terminated  by  a  mediaeval  bastion,  behind 
which  small  vessels  find  shelter.  Low  by  the  shore, 
on  the  north,  are  some  of  the  sturdy  windmills 
peculiar  to  these  islands,  and  I  can  distinguish 
with  a  glass  a  few  fragments  of  Byzantine  and 
mediaeval  architecture  among  the  common  build- 
ings. Staring  at  us  from  the  middle  of  the  town 
were  two  big  signs,  with  the  word  "Hotel." 

To  the  south  of  the  town,  amid  a  grove  of  trees, 
are  the  white  stones  of  the  cemetery;  the  city  of 
the  dead  is  nearly  as  large  as  that  of  the  living. 
Behind  the  city  are  orange  orchards  and  many  a 
bright  spot  of  verdure,  but  the  space  for  it  is  not 
broad.  Sharp,  bare,  serrated,  perpendicular  ridges 
of  mountain  rise  behind  the  town,  encircling  it 
like  an  amphitheatre.  In  the  morning  light  these 
mountains  are  tawny  and  rich  in  color,  tinged  with 
purple  and  red.  Chios  is  a  pretty  picture  in  the 
shelter  of  these  hills,  which  gather  for  it  the  rays 
of  the  rising  sun. 

It  is  now  half  a  century  since  the  name  of  Scio 
rang  through  the  civilized  world  as  the  theatre  of 
a  deed  which  Turkish  history  itself  can  scarcely 
parallel,  and  the  island  is  vigorously  regaining  its 
prosperity.  It  only  needs  to  recall  the  outlines  of 
the  story.  The  fertile  island,  which  is  four  times 


scio  373 

the  extent  of  the  Isle  of  Wight,  was  the  home  oi 
one  hundred  and  ten  thousand  inhabitants,  of 
whom  only  six  thousand  were  Turks.  The  Greeks 
of  Scio  were  said  to  differ  physically  and  morally 
from  all  their  kindred;  their  merchants  were 
princes  at  home  and  abroad,  art  and  literature 
flourished,  with  grace  and  refinement  of  manner, 
and  there  probably  nowhere  existed  a  society 
more  industrious,  gay,  contented,  and  intelligent. 
Tempted  by  some  adventurers  from  Samos  to  re- 
bel, they  drew  down  upon  themselves  the  ven- 
geance of  the  Turks,  who  retaliated  the  bloody 
massacre  of  Turkish  men,  women,  and  children 
by  the  insurrectionists,  with  a  universal  destruc- 
tion. The  city  of  Scio,  with  its  thirty  thousand 
inhabitants,  and  seventy  villages  were  reduced  to 
ashes ;  twenty -five  thousand  of  all  ages  and  both 
sexes  were  slain,  forty-five  thousand  were  carried 
away  as  slaves,  among  them  women  and  children 
who  had  been  reared  in  luxury,  and  most  of  the 
remainder  escaped,  in  a  destitute  state,  into  other 
parts  of  Greece.  At  the  end  of  the  summer's 
harvest  of  death,  only  two  thousand  Sciotes  were 
left  on  the  island.  An  apologist  for  the  Turks 
could  only  urge  that  the  Greeks  would  have  been 
as  unmerciful  under  like  circumstances. 

None  of  the  first-class  passengers  were  up  to  see 
Chios,  —  not  one  for  poor  Homer's  sake;  but  the 
second-class  were  stirring  for  their  own,  crawling 
out  of  their  comfortables,  giving  the  babies  a  turn, 
and  the  vigilant  flea  a  taste  of  the  morning  air. 
When  the  Russian  peasant,  who  sleeps  in  the  high 


374  AMONG    THE    ^GEAN    ISLANDS 

truncated  frieze  cap,  and  in  the  coat  which  he  wore 
in  Jerusalem,  —  a  garment  short  in  the  waist, 
gathered  in  pleats  underneath  the  shoulders,  and 
falling  in  stiff  expanding  folds  below,  —  when  he 
first  gets  up  and  rubs  his  eyes,  he  is  an  astonished 
being.  His  short-legged  wife  is  already  astir,  and 
beginning  to  collect  the  materials  of  breakfast. 
Some  of  the  Greeks  are  making  coffee ;  there  is  a 
smell  of  coffee,  and  there  are  various  other  unan- 
alyzed  odors.  But  for  pilgrims,  and  pilgrims  so 
closely  packed  that  no  one  can  stir  without  moving 
the  entire  mass,  these  are  much  cleaner  than  they 
might  be  expected  to  be,  and  cleaner,  indeed,  than 
they  can  continue  to  be,  and  keep  up  their  repu- 
tation. And  yet,  half  an  hour  among  them,  look- 
ing out  from  the  bow  for  a  comprehensive  view  of 
Chios,  is  quite  enough.  I  wished,  then,  that  these 
people  would  change  either  their  religion  or  their 
clothes. 

Last  night  we  had  singing  on  deck  by  an  extem- 
porized quartette  of  young  Americans,  with  har- 
monious and  well-blended  voices,  and  it  was  a 
most  delightful  contrast  to  the  caterwauling,  ac- 
companied by  the  darabouka,  which  we  constantly 
hear  on  the  forward  deck,  and  which  the  Arabs 
call  singing.  Even  the  fat,  good-humored  little 
Moslem  from  Damascus,  who  lives  in  the  pen  with 
the  merchant-prince  of  that  city,  listened  with  de- 
light and  declared  that  it  was  tyclt  katccr.  Who 
knows  but  these  people,  who  are  always  singing, 
have  some  appreciation  of  music  after  all? 


XXI 

SMYRNA   AND   EPHESUS 

HEN  we  left  Chios  we  sailed  at  first 
east,  right  into  the  sun,  gradually 
turned  north  and  rounded  the  promon- 
tory of  the  mainland,  and  then,  east 
by  south,  came  into  the  beautiful  land-locked  bay 
of  Smyrna,  in  which  the  blue  water  changes  into 
a  muddy  green.  At  length  we  passed  on  the  right 
a  Turkish  fortress,  which  appeared  as  formidable 
as  a  bathing  establishment,  and,  Smyrna  lay  at  the 
bottom  of  the  gulf,  circling  the  shore,  —  white 
houses,  fruit-trees,  and  hills  beyond. 

The  wind  was  north,  as  it  always  is  here  in  the 
morning,  and  the  landing  was  difficult.  We  had 
the  usual  excitement  of  swarming  boats  and  clam- 
orous boatmen  and  lively  waves.  One  passenger 
went  into  the  water  instead  of  the  boat,  but  was 
easily  fished  out  by  his  baggy  trousers,  and,  as 
he  was  a  Greek  pilgrim,  it  was  thought  that  a  lit- 
tle water  would  n't  injure  him.  Coming  to  the 
shore  we  climbed  with  difficulty  out  of  the  bobbing 
boat  upon  the  sea-wall;  the  shiftless  Turkish  gov- 
ernment will  do  nothing  to  improve  the  landing  at 
this  great  port,  —  if  the  Sultan  can  borrow  any 


376  SMYRNA    AND   EPHESUS 

money  he  builds  a  new  palace  on  the  Bosphorus, 
or  an  iron-clad  to  anchor  in  front  of  it. 

Smyrna  may  be  said  to  have  a  character  of  its 
own  in  not  having  any  character  of  its  own.  One 
of  the  most  ancient  cities  on  the  globe,  it  has  no 
appearance  of  antiquity;  containing  all  nationali- 
ties, it  has  no  nationality;  the  second  commercial 
city  of  the  East,  it  has  no  chamber  of  commerce, 
no  Bourse,  no  commercial  unity;  its  citizens  are 
of  no  country  and  have  no  impulse  of  patriotism ; 
it  is  an  Asiatic  city  with  a  European  face;  it 
produces  nothing,  it  exchanges  everything,  —  the 
fabrics  of  Europe,  the  luxuries  of  the  Orient;  the 
children  of  the  East  are  sent  to  its  schools,  but 
it  has  no  literary  character  nor  any  influence  of 
culture;  it  is  hospitable  to  all  religions,  and  con- 
spicuous for  none ;  it  is  the  paradise  of  the  Turks, 
the  home  of  luxury  and  of  beautiful  women,  but  it 
is  also  a  favorite  of  the  mosquito,  and,  until  re- 
cently, it  has  been  the  yearly  camp  of  the  plague; 
it  is  not  the  most  healthful  city  in  the  world,  and 
yet  it  is  the  metropolis  of  the  drug-trade. 

Smyrna  can  be  compared  to  Damascus  in  its  age 
and  in  its  perpetuity  under  all  discouragements 
and  changes,  —  the  shocks  of  earthquakes,  the  con- 
stant visitations  of  pestilence,  and  the  rule  of  a 
hundred  masters.  It  was  a  great  city  before  the 
migration  of  the  lonians  into  Asia  Minor,  it  saw 
the  rise  and  fall  of  Sardis,  it  was  restored  from  a 
paralysis  of  four  centuries  by  Alexander.  Under 
all  vicissitudes  it  seems  to  have  retained  its  char- 
acter of  a  great  mart  of  exchange,  a  necessity  for 


AN  EVER   PROSPEROUS   CITY  377 

the  trade  of  Asia;  and  perhaps  the  indifference  of 
its  conglomerate  inhabitants  to  freedom  and  to 
creeds  contributed  to  its  safety.  Certainly  it 
thrived  as  well  under  the  Christians,  when  it  was 
the  seat  of  one  of  the  seven  churches,  as  it  did  un- 
der the  Romans,  when  it  was  a  seat  of  a  great 
school  of  sophists  and  rhetoricians,  and  it  is  equally 
prosperous  under  the  sway  of  the  successor  of  Mo- 
hammed. During  the  thousand  years  of  the  always 
decaying  Byzantine  Empire  it  had  its  share  of  mis- 
fortunes, and  its  walls  alternately,  at  a  later  day, 
displayed  the  star  and  crescent,  and  the  equal  arms 
of  the  cross  of  St.  John.  Yet,  in  all  its  history,  I 
seem  to  see  the  trading,  gay,  free,  but  not  disor- 
derly Smyrna  passing  on  its  even  way  of  traffic  and 
of  pleasure. 

Of  its  two  hundred  thousand  and  more  inhab- 
itants, about  ninety  thousand  are  Rayah  Greeks, 
and  about  eighty  thousand  are  Turks.  There  is 
a  changing  population  of  perhaps  a  thousand  Eu- 
ropeans, there  are  large  bodies  of  Jews  and  Arme- 
nians, and  it  was  recently  estimated  to  have  as 
many  as  fifteen  thousand  Levantines.  These  latter 
are  the  descendants  of  the  marriage  of  Europeans 
with  Greek  and  Jewish  women;  and  whatever 
moral  reputation  the  Levantines  enjoy  in  the  Le- 
vant, the  women  of  this  mixture  are  famous  for 
their  beauty.  But  the  race  is  said  to  be  not  self- 
sustaining,  and  is  yielding  to  the  original  types. 
The  languages  spoken  in  Smyrna  are  Turkish,  a 
Greek  dialect  (the  Romaic),  Spanish,  Italian, 
French,  English,  and  Arabic,  probably  prevailing 


378  SMYRNA    AND    EPHESUS 

in  the  order  named.  Our  own  steamer  was  much 
more  Oriental  than  the  city  of  Smyrna.  As  soon 
as  we  stepped  ashore  we  seemed  to  have  come  into 
a  European  city ;  the  people  almost  all  wear  the 
Frank  dress,  the  shops  offer  little  that  is  peculiar. 
One  who  was  unfamiliar  with  bazaars  might  won- 
der at  the  tangle  of  various  lanes,  but  we  saw  no- 
thing calling  for  comment.  A  walk  through  the 
Jewish  quarter,  here  as  everywhere  else  the  dirtiest 
and  most  picturesque  in  the  city,  will  reward  the 
philosophic  traveler  with  the  sight  of  lovely  women 
lolling  at  every  window.  It  is  not  the  fashion  for 
Smyrniote  ladies  to  promenade  the  streets,  but  they 
mercifully  array  themselves  in  full  toilet  and  stand 
in  their  doorways. 

The  programme  of  the  voyage  of  the  Achille 
promised  us  a  day  and  a  half  in  Smyrna,  which 
would  give  us  time  to  visit  Ephesus.  We  were 
due  Friday  noon ;  we  did  not  arrive  till  Saturday 
noon.  This  vexatious  delay  had  caused  much  agi- 
tation on  board ;  to  be  cheated  out  of  Ephesus  was 
an  outrage  which  the  tourists  could  not  submit  to ; 
they  had  come  this  way  on  purpose  to  see  Ephesus. 
They  would  rather  give  up  anything  else  in  the 
East.  The  captain  said  he  had  no  discretion,  he 
must  sail  at  4  r.  M.  The  passengers  then  prepared 
a  handsome  petition  to  the  agent,  begging  him  to 
detain  the  steamer  till  eight  o'clock,  in  order  to 
permit  them  to  visit  Ephesus  by  a  special  train. 
There  is  a  proclivity  in  all  those  who  can  write  to 
sign  any  and  every  thing  except  a  subscription 
paper,  and  this  petition  received  fifty-six  eager 


THE    AIDIN    RAILWAY  379 

and  first-class  signatures.  The  agent  at  Smyrna 
plumply  refused  our  request,  with  unnecessary 
surliness;  but  upon  the  arrival  of  the  captain,  and 
a  consultation  which  no  doubt  had  more  reference 
to  freight  than  to  the  petition,  the  official  agreed, 
as  a  special  favor,  to  detain  the  steamer  till  eight 
o'clock,  but  not  a  moment  longer. 

We  hastened  to  the  station  of  the  Aidin  Rail- 
way, which  runs  eighty  miles  to  Aidin,  the  ancient 
Tralles,  a  rich  Lydian  metropolis  of  immemorial 
foundation.  The  modern  town  has  perhaps  fifty 
thousand  inhabitants,  and  is  a  depot  for  cotton  and 
figs;  that  sweetmeat  of  Paradise,  the  Jtalva,  is 
manufactured  there,  and  its  great  tanneries  pro- 
duce fine  yellow  Morocco  leather.  The  town  lies 
only  three  miles  from  the  famous  tortuous  Marau- 
der, and  all  the  region  about  it  is  a  garden  of  vines 
and  fruit-trees.  The  railway  company  is  under 
English  management,  which  signifies  promptness, 
and  the  special  train  was  ready  in  ten  minutes; 
when  lo!  of  the  fifty-six  devotees  of  Ephesus  only 
eleven  appeared.  We  were  off  at  once ;  good  en- 
gine, solid  track,  clean,  elegant,  comfortable  car- 
riages. As  we  moved  out  of  the  city  the  air  was 
full  of  the  odor  of  orange-blossoms ;  we  crossed  the 
Moles,  and  sped  down  a  valley,  very  fertile,  smil- 
ing with  grain-fields,  green  meadows,  groves  of 
mulberry,  oranges,  figs,  with  blue  hills,  —  an  an- 
cient Mount  Olympus,  beyond  which  lay  green 
Sardis,  in  the  distance,  a  country  as  lovely  and 
home-like  as  an  English  or  American  farm-land. 
We  had  seen  nothing  so  luxuriant  and  thriving  in 


380  SMYRNA    AND   EPHESUS 

the  East  before.  The  hills,  indeed,  were  stripped 
of  trees,  but  clad  011  the  tops  with  verdure,  the  re- 
sult of  plentiful  rains. 

We  went  "express."  The  usual  time  of  trains 
is  three  hours;  we  ran  over  the  fifty  miles  in  an 
hour  and  a  quarter.  We  could  hardly  believe  our 
senses,  that  we  were  in  a  luxurious  carriage,  flying 
along  at  this  rate  in  Asia,  and  going  to  Ephesus ! 
While  we  were  confessing  that  the  lazy  swing  of 
the  carriage  was  more  agreeable  than  that  of  the 
donkey  or  the  dromedary,  the  train  pulled  up  at 
station  Ayasolook,  once  the  residence  of  the  Sul- 
tans of  Ayasolook,  and  the  camp  of  Tamerlane, 
now  a  cluster  of  coffee-houses  and  railway-offices, 
with  a  few  fever-stricken  inhabitants,  who  prey 
upon  travelers,  not  with  Oriental  courtesy,  but 
with  European  insolence. 

On  our  right  was  a  round  hill  surmounted  by  a 
Roman  castle ;  from  the  hills  on  the  left,  striding 
across  the  railway  towards  Ephesus,  were  the  tall 
stone  pillars  of  a  Roman  aqueduct,  the  brick  arches 
and  conductor  nearly  all  fallen  away.  On  the 
summit  of  nearly  every  pillar  a  white,  red-legged 
stork  had  built,  from  sticks  and  grass,  a  high  round 
nest,  which  covered  the  top;  and  the  bird  stood  in 
it  motionless,  a  beautiful  object  at  that  height 
against  the  sky. 

The  station  people  had  not  obeyed  our  telegram 
to  furnish  enough  horses,  and  those  of  us  who  wei'e 
obliged  to  walk  congratulated  ourselves  on  the  mis- 
take, since  the  way  was  as  rough  as  the  steeds. 
The  path  led  over  a  ground  full  of  stone  debris. 


AYASOLOOK  381 

This  was  the  site  of  Ayasolook,  which  had  been 
built  out  of  the  ruins  of  the  old  city ;  most  pictur- 
esque objects  were  the  small  mosque-tombs  and 
minarets,  which  revived  here  the  most  graceful 
forms  and  fancies  of  Saracenic  art.  One,  I  no- 
ticed, which  had  the  ideal  Persian  arch  and  slen- 
der columns,  Nature  herself  had  taken  into  loving 
care  and  draped  with  clinging  green  and  hanging 
jvines.  There  were  towers  of  brick,  to  which  age 
has  given  a  rich  tone,  flaring  at  the  top  in  a  curve 
that  fascinated  the  eye.  On  each  tomb,  tower, 
and  minaret  the  storks  had  nested,  and  upon  each 
stood  the  mother  looking  down  upon  her  brood. 
About  the  crumbling  sides  of  a  tower,  thus  draped 
and  crowned,  innumerable  swallows  had  built  their 
nests,  so  that  it  was  alive  with  birds,  whose  cheer- 
ful occupation  gave  a  kind  of  pathos  to  the  human 
desertion  and  decay. 

Behind  the  Roman  castle  stands  the  great  but 
ruinous  mosque  of  Sultan  Selim,  which  was  for- 
merly the  church  of  St.  John.  We  did  not  turn 
aside  for  its  empty  glory,  but  to  the  theologian  or 
the  student  of  the  formation  of  Christian  dogmas, 
and  of  the  gladiatorial  spectacles  of  an  ancient 
convocation,  there  are  few  arenas  in  the  East  more 
interesting  than  this ;  for  in  this  church  it  is  sup- 
posed were  held  the  two  councils  of  A.  I).  431  and 
449.  St.  John,  after  his  release  from  Patmos, 
passed  the  remainder  of  his  life  here;  the  Virgin 
Mary  followed  him  to  the  city,  so  favored  by  the 
presence  of  the  first  apostles,  and  here  she  died 
and  was  buried.  From  her  entombment,  Ephesus 


382  SMYRNA   AND   EPHESUS 

for  a  long  time  enjoyed  the  reputation  of  the  City 
of  the  Virgin,  until  that  honor  was  transferred  to 
Jerusalem,  where,  however,  her  empty  tomb  soon 
necessitated  her  resurrection  and  assumption,  — 
the  subject  which  inspired  so  many  artists  after 
the  revival  of  learning  in  P^urope.  In  the  hill  near 
this  church  Mary  Magdalene  was  buried ;  in  Ephe- 
sus  also  reposed  the  body  of  St.  Timothy,  its  first 
bishop. 

This  church  of  St.  John  was  at  some  distance 
from  the  heart  of  the  city,  which  lay  in  the  plain 
to  the  south  and  near  the  sea,  but  in  the  fifth  cen- 
tury Ephesus  was  a  city  of  churches.  The  reader 
needs  to  remember  that  in  that  century  the  Chris- 
tian controversy  had  passed  from  the  nature  of  the 
Trinity  to  the  incarnation,  and  that  the  first  coun- 
cil of  Ephesus  was  called  by  the  emperor  Theodo- 
sius  in  the  hope  of  establishing  the  opinion  of  the 
Syrian  Nestorius,  the  primate  of  Constantinople, 
who  refused  to  give  to  the  mother  of  Christ  the 
title,  then  come  into  use,  of  the  Mother  of  God, 
and  discriminated  nicely  the  two  natures  of  the 
Saviour.  His  views  were  anathematized  by  Cyril, 
the  patriarch  of  Alexandria,  and  the  dispute  in- 
volved the  entire  East  in  a  fierce  contest.  In  the 
council  convened  of  Greek  bishops,  Nestorius  had 
no  doubt  but  he  would  be  sustained  by  the  weight 
of  authority ;  but  the  prompt  Cyril,  whose  quali- 
ties would  have  found  a  conspicuous  and  useful 
theatre  at  the  head  of  a  Roman  army  against  the 
Scythians,  was  first  on  the  ground,  with  an  abun- 
dance of  spiritual  and  temporal  arms.  In  reading 


A   CHURCH    COUNCIL  383 

of  this  council,  one  recalls  without  effort  the  once 
famous  and  now  historical  conventions  of  the  Dem- 
ocratic party  of  the  State  of  New  York,  in  the 
days  when  political  salvation,  offered  in  the  creeds 
of  the  "Hard  Shells"  and  of  the  "Soft  Shells," 
was  enforced  by  the  attendance  of  gangs  of  "  Short 
boys"  and  "Tammany  boys,"  who  understood  the 
use  of  sluiig-shot  against  heretical  opinions.  It  is 
true  that  Nestorius  had  in  reserve  behind  his  pre- 
lates the  stout  slaves  of  the  bath  of  Zeuxippus,  but 
Cyril  had  secured  the  alliance  of  the  bishop  of 
Ephesus,  and  the  support  of  the  rabble  of  peasants 
and  slaves  who  were  easily  excited  to  jealousy  for 
the  honor  of  the  Virgin  of  their  city ;  and  he  landed 
from  Egypt,  with  his  great  retinue  of  bishops,  a 
band  of  merciless  monks  of  the  Nile,  of  fanatics, 
mariners,  and  slaves,  who  took  a  ready  interest 
in  the  theological  discussions  of  those  days.  The 
council  met  in  this  church,  surrounded  by  the  fierce 
if  not  martial  array  of  Cyril;  deliberations  were 
begun  before  the  arrival  of  the  most  weighty  sup- 
porters of  Nestorius,  —  for  Cyril  anticipated  the 
slow  approach  of  John  of  Antioch  and  his  bishops, 
—  and  in  one  day  the  primate  of  Constantinople 
was  hastily  deposed  and  cursed,  together  with  his 
heresy.  Upon  the  arrival  of  John,  he  also  formed 
a  council,  which  deposed  and  cursed  the  opposite 
party  and  heresy,  and  for  three  months  Ephesus 
was  a  scene  of  clamor  and  bloodshed.  The  cathe- 
dral was  garrisoned,  the  churches  were  shut  against 
the  Nestorians;  the  imperial  troops  assaulted  them 
and  were  repelled;  the  whole  city  was  thrown  into 


384  SMYRNA    AND   EPHESUS 

a  turmoil  by  the  encounters  of  the  rival  factions, 
each  council  hurled  its  anathemas  at  the  other,  and 
peace  was  only  restored  by  the  dissolution  of  the 
council  by  command  of  the  emperor.  The  second 
session,  in  the  year  449,  was  shorter  and  more  de- 
cisive ;  it  made  quick  work  of  the  heresy  of  Nesto- 
rius.  Africa  added  to  its  delegation  of  bullies  and 
fanatics  a  band  of  archers ;  the  heresy  of  the  two 
natures  was  condemned  and  anathematized,  — 
"May  those  who  divide  Christ  be  divided  with  the 
sword,  may  they  be  hewn  in  pieces,  may  they  be 
burned  alive,"  —and  the  scene  in  the  cathedral 
ended  in  a  mob  of  monks  and  soldiers,  who  tram- 
pled upon  Flavian,  the  then  primate  of  Constanti- 
nople, so  that  in  three  days  thereafter  he  died  of 
his  wounds. 

It  is  as  difficult  to  make  real  now  upon  this  spot 
those  fierce  theologic  wars  of  Ephesus,  as  it  is  the 
fabled  exploits  of  Bacchus  and  Hercules  and  the 
Amazons  in  this  valley ;  to  believe  that  here  were 
born  Apollo  and  Diana,  and  that  hither  fled  La- 
tona,  and  that  great  Pan  lurked  in  its  groves. 

We  presently  came  upon  the  site  of  the  great 
Temple  of  Diana,  recently  identified  by  Mr. 
Wood.  We  encountered  on  our  way  a  cluster  of 
stone  huts,  wretched  habitations  of  the  only  repre- 
sentatives of  the  renowned  capital.  Before  us  was 
a  plain  broken  by  small  hillocks  and  mounds,  and 
strewn  with  cut  and  fractured  stone.  The  site  of 
the  temple  can  be  briefly  and  accurately  described 
as  a  rectangular  excavation,  perhaps  one  hundred 
and  fifty  feet  wide  by  three  hundred  long  and 


THE   TEMPLE    OF    DIANA  385 

twelve  feet  deep,  with  two  feet  of  water  in  it,  out 
of  which  rises  a  stump  of  a  column  of  granite  and 
another  of  marble,  and  two  bases  of  marble. 
Round  this  hole  are  heaps  of  fractured  stone  and 
marble.  In  this  excavation  Mr.  Wood  found  the 
statue  of  Diana,  which  we  may  hope  is  the  ancient 
sacred  image,  guarded  by  the  priests  as  the  most 
precious  treasure  of  the  temple,  and  imposed  upon 
the  credulity  of  men  as  heaven-descended.  This 
is  all  that  remains  of  one  of  the  Seven  Wonders 
of  the  world,  —  a  temple  whose  fame  is  second  to 
none  in  antiquity;  a  temple  seven  times  burned 
and  eight  times  built,  and  always  with  increased 
magnificence;  a  temple  whose  origin,  referable 
doubtless  to  the  Cyclopean  builders  of  this  coast, 
cannot  be  less  than  fifteen  hundred  years  before 
our  era ;  a  temple  which  still  had  its  votaries  and 
its  rites  in  the  fourth  century.  We  picked  up  a 
bit  of  marble  from  its  ruins,  as  a  help  both  to 
memory  and  imagination,  but  we  went  our  way 
utterly  unable  to  conceive  that  there  ever  existed 
any  such  person  as  great  Diana  of  the  Ephesians. 
We  directed  our  steps  over  the  bramble-grown 
plain  to  the  hill  Pion.  I  suppose  Pion  may  have 
been  the  acropolis  of  Ephesus,  the  spot  of  the  ear- 
liest settlement,  and  on  it  and  around  it  clustered 
many  of  the  temples  and  public,  buildings.  The 
reader  will  recall  Argos,  and  Athens,  and  Corinth, 
and  a  dozen  other  cities  of  antiquity,  for  which  na- 
ture furnished  in  the  midst  of  a  plain  such  a  con- 
venient and  easily  defended  hill-fortress.  On  our 
way  thither  we  walked  amid  mounds  that  form  a 


386  SMYRNA    AND    EPHESUS 

street  of  tombs ;  many  of  the  sarcophagi  are  still 
in  place,  and  little  injured;  but  we  explore  the 
weed-hid  ground  with  caution,  for  it  is  full  of  pit- 
falls. 

North  of  the  hill  Pion  is  a  low  green  valley,  en- 
circled with  hills,  and  in  the  face  of  one  of  its 
ledges,  accessible  only  by  a  ladder,  we  were  pointed 
out  the  cave  of  the  Seven  Sleepers.  This  favorite 
myth,  which  our  patriotism  has  transferred  to  the 
highlands  of  the  Hudson  in  a  modified  shape,  took 
its  most  popular  form  in  the  legend  of  the  Seven 
Sleepers,  and  this  grotto  at  Ephesus  was  for  many 
centuries  the  object  of  Christian  and  Moslem  pil- 
grimage. The  Christian  legend,  that  in  the  time 
of  the  persecution  of  Diocletian  seven  young  men 
escaped  to  this  cave  and  slept  there  two  centuries, 
and  awoke  to  find  Christianity  the  religion  of  the 
empire,  was  adopted  and  embellished  by  Moham- 
med. In  his  version,  the  wise  dog  Ketmehr,  or 
Al  Rakiin  as  the  Koran  names  him,  becomes  an 
important  character. 

"When  the  young  men,"  says  Abd-el-Atti,  "go 
along  the  side  of  the  hill  to  the  cave,  the  dog  go  to 
follow  them.  They  take  up  stones  to  make  him 
go  back,  for  they  'fraid  of  him  bark,  and  let  the 
people  know  where  they  hide.  But  the  dog  not  to 
go  back,  he  sit  down  on  him  hind,  and  him  look 
berry  wise.  By  and  by  he  speak,  he  say  the  name 
of  God. 

" '  How  did  you  know  that  ?  '  ask  him  the  young 
men. 

"'I  know  it,'  the  dog  say,  'before  you  born!  ' 


THE   SEVEN   SLEEPERS  387 

"Then  they  see  the  dog  he  wise  by  Allah,  and 
know  great  deal,  and  let  him  to  go  with  'em.  This 
dog,  Ketmehr,  he  is  gone,  so  our  Prophet  say,  to 
be  in  Paradise;  no  other  dog  be  there.  So  I 
hope." 

The  names  of  the  Seven  Sleepers  and  Ketmehr 
are  in  great  talismanic  repute  throughout  the  East ; 
they  are  engraved  upon  swords  and  upon  gold  and 
precious  stones,  and  in  Smyrna  you  may  buy  these 
charms  against  evil. 

Keeping  round  the  hill  Pion,  we  reached  the 
ruins  of  the  gymnasium,  heaps  of  stone  amid  brick 
arches,  the  remains  of  an  enormous  building ;  near 
it  is  the  north  gate  of  the  city,  a  fine  marble  struc- 
ture, now  almost  buried.  Still  circling  Pion  we 
found  ourselves  in  a  narrow  valley,  on  the  other 
side  of  which  was  the  long  ridge  of  Conessus,  which 
runs  southward  towards  the  sea.  Conessus  seems 
to  have  been  the  burial-place  of  the  old  town. 
This  narrow  valley  is  stuffed  with  remains  of  splen- 
did buildings,  of  which  nothing  is  now  to  be  seen 
but  heaps  of  fine  marble,  walls,  capitals,  columns, 
in  prodigal  waste.  We  stopped  to  admire  a  bit  of 
carving,  or  to  notice  a  Greek  inscription,  and 
passed  on  to  the  Stadium,  to  the  Little  Theatre,  to 
the  tomb  of  St.  Luke.  On  one  of  the  lintels  of  the 
entrance  of  this  tomb,  in  white  marble,  as  fresh  as 
if  carved  yesterday,  is  a  cross,  and  under  it  the  fig- 
ure of  an  Egyptian  ox,  the  emblem  of  that  saint. 

We  emerged  from  this  gorge  to  a  wide  view  of 
the  plain,  and  a  glimpse  of  an  arm  of  the  sea.  On 
this  plain  are  the  scattered  ruins  of  the  old  city, 


388  SMYRNA   AND  EPHESUS 

brick,  stone,  and  marble,  —  absolute  desolation. 
On  the  left,  near  the  sea,  is  a  conical  hill,  crowned 
by  one  of  the*  towers  of  the  ancient  wall,  and  dig- 
nified with  the  name  of  the  "prison  of  St.  Paul." 
In  this  plain  is  neither  life  nor  cultivation,  but 
vegetation  riots  over  the  crumbling  remains  of 
Ephesus,  and  fever  waits  there  its  chance  human 
prey.  We  stood  on  the  side  of  the  hill  Pion,  amid 
the  fallen  columns  and  heaped  walls  of  its  Great 
Theatre.  It  was  to  this  theatre  that  the  multitude 
rushed  when  excited  against  Paul  by  Demetrius, 
the  silversmith,  who  carried  his  religion  into  his 
business ;  and  here  the  companions  of  Paul  endeav-^ 
ored  to  be  heard  and  covdd  not,  for  "all  with  one 
voice  about  the  space  of  two  hours  cried  out,  Great 
is  Diana  of  the  Ephesians."  This  amphitheatre 
for  fifty  thousand  spectators  is  scooped  out  of  the 
side  of  the  hill,  and  its  tiers  of  seats  are  still  indi- 
cated. What  a  magnificent  view  they  must  have 
enjoyed  of  the  city  and  the  sea  beyond;  for  the 
water  then  came  much  nearer;  and  the  spectator 
who  may  have  wearied  of  the  strutting  of  the  busk- 
ined  heroes  on  the  stage,  or  of  the  monotonous 
chant  of  the  chorus,  could  rest  his  eye  upon  the 
purple  slopes  of  Conessus,  upon  the  colonnades 
and  domes  of  the  opulent  city,  upon  the  blue  waves 
that  bore  the  merchants'  ships  of  Rome  and  Alex- 
andria and  Berytus. 

The  theatre  is  a  mine  of  the  most  exquisite  mar- 
bles, and  we  left  its  treasures  with  reluctance;  we 
saw  other  ruins,  bases  of  columns,  the  remains  of 
the  vast  city  magazines  for  the  storage  of  corn,  and 


THE    VAGARIES    OF    HUMAN    PROGRESS        389 

solid  walls  of  huge  stones  once  washed  by  the  sea ; 
we  might  have  wandered  for  days  amid  the  frag- 
ments, but  to  what  purpose? 

At  Ephesus  we  encountered  no  living  thing. 
Man  has  deserted  it,  silence  reigns  over  the  plain, 
nature  slowly  effaces  the  evidence  of  his  occupa- 
tion, and  the  sea  even  slinks  away  from  it.  No 
great  city  that  I  have  seen  is  left  to  such  absolute 
desolation ;  not  Paestum  in  its  marsh,  not  Thebes 
in  its  sand,  not  Ba'albek,  not  even  Memphis,  swept 
clean  as  it  is  of  monuments,  for  its  site  is  vocal 
with  labor  and  bounteous  in  harvests.  Time  was, 
doubtless,  when  gold  pieces  piled  two  deep  on  this 
ground  could  not  have  purchased  it ;  and  the  buy- 
ers or  sellers  never  imagined  that  the  city  lots  of 
Ephesus  could  become  worth  so  little  as  they  are 
to-day. 

If  one  were  disposed  to  muse  upon  the  vagaries 
of  human  progress,  this  would  be  the  spot.  No 
civilization,  no  religion,  has  been  wanting  to  it. 
Its  vast  Cyclopean  foundations  were  laid  by  simple 
pagans;  it  was  in  the  polytheistic  belief  of  the 
Greeks  that  it  attained  the  rank  of  one  of  the  most 
polished  and  wealthy  cities  of  antiquity,  famed  for 
its  arts,  its  schools  of  poetry,  of  painting  and  sculp- 
ture, of  logic  and  magic,  attracting  to  its  oppor- 
tunities the  devout,  the  seekers  of  pleasure  and  of 
wisdom,  the  poets,  the  men  of  the  world,  the  con- 
querors and  the  defeated ;  here  Artemisia  sheltered 
the  children  of  Xerxes  after  the  disaster  of  Sala- 
mis ;  here  Alexander  sat  for  his  portrait  to  Apelles 
(who  was  born  in  the  city)  when  he  was  returning 


390  SMYRNA    AND    EPHESUS 

from  the  capture  of  Sardis;  Spartans  and  Atheni- 
ans alike,  Lysander  and  Alcibiades,  sought  Ephe- 
sus,  for  it  had  something  for  all ;  Hannibal  here 
conferred  with  Antiochus;  Cicero  was  entertained 
with  games  by  the  people  when  he  was  on  his 
way  to  his  province  of  Cilicia;  and  Antony  in  the 
character  of  inebriate  Bacchus,  accompanied  by 
Cleopatra,  crowned  with  flowers  and  attended  by 
bands  of  effeminate  musicians,  made  here  one  of 
the  pageants  of  his  folly.  In  fact,  scarcely  any 
famous  name  of  antiquity  is  wanting  to  the  adorn- 
ment of  this  hospitable  city.  Under  the  religion 
of  Christ  it  has  had  the  good  fortune  to  acquire 
equal  celebrity,  thanks  to  the  residence  of  Paul, 
the  tent-maker,  and  to  its  conspicuous  position  at 
the  head  of  the  seven  churches  of  Asia.  From 
Ephesus  went  forth  the  news  of  the  gospel,  as  for- 
merly had  spread  the  rites  of  Diana,  and  Chris- 
tian churches  and  schools  of  philosophy  succeeded 
the  temples  and  gymnasia  of  the  polytheists.  And, 
in  turn,  the  cross  was  supplanted  by  the  crescent; 
but  it  was  in  the  day  when  Islamism  was  no  longer 
a  vital  faith,  and  except  a  few  beautiful  ruins  the 
Moslem  occupation  has  contributed  nothing  to  the 
glory  of  Ephesus.  And  now  paganism,  Christian- 
ity, and  Moslemism  seem  alike  to  have  forsaken 
the  weary  theatre  of  so  much  brilliant  history. 
As  we  went  out  to  the  station,  by  the  row  of  booths 
and  coffee-shops,  a  modern  Greek,  of  I'  do  not 
know  what  religion,  offered  to  sell  me  an  image  of 
I  do  not  know  what  faith.  There  is  great  curios- 
ity at  present  about  the  relics  and  idols  of  dead 


THE    MANUFACTURE    OF    RELICS  .391 

religions,  and  a  brisk  manufacture  of  them  has 
sprung  up ;  it  is  in  the  hands  of  skeptics  who  in- 
differently propagate  the  images  of  the  Virgin 
Mary  or  of  the  chaste  huntress  Diana. 

The  swift  Asiatic  train  took  us  back  to  Smyrna 
in  a  golden  sunset.  We  had  been  warned  by  the 
agent  not  to  tarry  a  moment  beyond  eight  o'clock, 
and  we  hurried  breathless  to  the  boat.  Fortunately 
the  steamer  had  not  sailed ;  we  were  in  time,  and 
should  have  been  if  we  had  remained  on  shore  till 
eight  the  next  morning.  All  night  long  we  were 
loading  freight,  with  an  intolerable  rattling  of 
chains,  puffing  of  the  donkey-engine,  and  swearing 
of  boatmen ;  after  the  novelty  of  swearing  in  an 
Oriental  tongue  has  worn  off,  it  is  no  more  enjoy- 
able than  any  other  kind  of  profanity. 


XXII 

THE   ADVENTURERS 

E  sailed  away  from  Smyrna  Sunday 
morning,  with  the  Achille  more 
crowded  than  when  we  entered  that 
port.  The  second-class  passengers 
still  further  encroached  upon  the  first-class.  The 
Emir  of  Damascus,  with  all  his  rugs  and  beds, 
had  been  pushed  farther  towards  the  stern,  and 
more  harems  occupied  temporary  pens  on  our  deck, 
and  drew  away  our  attention  from  the  natural 
scenery. 

The  venerable,  white-bearded  Greek  bishop  of 
Smyrna  was  a  passenger,  also  the  tall,  noble-look- 
ing pasha  of  that  city,  just  relieved  and  ordered  to 
Constantinople,  as  pashas  are  continually,  at  the 
whim  of  the  Sultan.  We  had  three  pashas  on 
board,  —  one  recalled  from  Haifa,  who  had  been 
only  twenty  days  at  his  post.  The  pasha  of 
Smyrna  was  accompanied  by  his  family,  described 
on  the  register  as  his  wife  and  "four  others,"  an 
indefinite  expression  to  define  an  indefinite  condi- 
tion. The  wife  had  a  room  below;  the  "four  oth- 
ers "  were  penned  up  in  a  cushioned  area  on  the 
saloon  deck,  and  there  they  squatted  all  day,  veiled 


AT    MITYLENE  393 

and  robed  in  white,  poor  things,  without  the  least 
occupation  for  hand  or  mind.  Near  them,  other 
harems  of  Greeks  and  Turks,  women,  babies, 
slaves,  all  in  an  Oriental  mess,  ate  curds  and  green 
lettuce. 

We  coasted  along  the  indented,  picturesque  shore 
of  Asia,  having  in  view  the  mountains  about  an- 
cient Pergamus,  the  seat  of  one  of  the  seven 
churches;  and  before  noon  came  to  Mitylene,  the 
ancient  Lesbos,  a  large  island  which  bears  another 
Mount  Olympus,  and  cast  anchor  in  the  bay  upon 
which  the  city  stands.  By  the  bend  of  the  bay 
and  the  opposite  coast,  the  town  is  charmingly 
land-locked.  The  site  of  Mitylene,  like  so  many 
of  these  island  cities,  is  an  amphitheatre,  and  the 
mountain-slopes,  green  and  blooming  with  fruit- 
trees,  are  dotted  with  white  houses  and  villages. 
The  scene  is  Italian  rather  than  Oriental,  and  gives 
one  the  general  impression  of  Castellamare  or  Sor- 
rento; but  the  city  is  prettier  to  look  at  than  to 
explore,  as  its  broad  and  clean  streets,  its  ordinary 
houses  and  European-dressed  inhabitants,  take  us 
out  of  our  ideal  voyaging,  and  into  the  regions 
of  the  commonplace.  The  shops  were  closed,  and 
the  country  people,  who  in  all  countries  appear  to 
derive  an  unexplained  pleasure  in  wandering  about 
the  streets  of  a  city  hand  in  hand,  were  seeking 
this  mild  recreation.  A  youthful  Jew,  to  whom 
the  Sunday  was  naught,  under  pretense  of  showing 
us  something  antique,  led  us  into  the  den  of  a 
Greek,  to  whom  it  was  also  naught,  and  whose 
treasures  were  bags  of  defaced  copper  coins  of  the 
Roman  period. 


394  THE   ADVENTURERS 

Upon  the  point  above  the  city  is  a  fine  mediaeval 
fortress,  now  a  Turkish  fort,  where  we  encoun- 
tered, in  the  sentinel  at  the  gate,  the  only  official 
in  the  Orient  who  ever  refused  backsheesh;  I  do 
not  know  what  his  idea  is.  From  the  walls  we 
looked  upon  the  blue  strait,  the  circling,  purple 
hills  of  Asia,  upon  islands,  pretty  villages,  and 
distant  mountains,  soft,  hazy,  serrated,  in  short, 
upon  a  scene  of  poetry  and  peace,  into  which  the 
ancient  stone  bastion  by  the  harbor,  which  told  of 
days  of  peril,  and  a  ruined  aqueduct  struggling 
down  the  hill  back  of  the  town,  —  the  remnant  of 
more  vigorous  days,  —  brought  no  disturbance. 

In  Lesbos  we  are  at  the  source  of  lyric  poetry, 
the  ^Eolian  spring  of  Greece;  here  Alcaeus  was 
born.  Here  we  come  upon  the  footsteps  of  Sap- 
pho. We  must  go  back  to  a  period  when  this  and 
all  the  islands  of  these  heavenly  seas  were  bloom- 
ing masses  of  vegetation,  the  hills  hung  with  for- 
ests, the  slopes  purple  with  the  vine,  the  valleys 
laughing  with  flowers  and  fruit,  and  everywhere 
the  primitive,  joyful  Greek  life.  No  doubt,  man- 
ners were  somewhat  rude,  and  passions,  love,  and 
hate,  and  revenge,  were  frankly  exhibited ;  but  in 
all  the  homely  life  ran  a  certain  culture,  which 
seems  to  us  beautiful  even  in  the  refinement  of  this 
shamefaced  age.  The  hardy  youth  of  the  islands 
sailed  into  far  seas,  and  in  exchange  for  the  bounty 
of  their  soil  brought  back  foreign  fabrics  of  lux- 
ury. We  know  that  Lesbos  was  no  stranger  to 
the  Athenian  influence,  its  scholars  had  heard 
Plato  and  Aristotle,  and  the  warriors  of  Athens 


THE    HOME    OF    SAPPHO  395 

respected  it  both  as  a  foe  and  as  an  ally.  Chara- 
kos,  a  brother  of  Sappho,  went  to  Egypt  with  a 
ship  full  of  wine,  and  returned  with  the  beautiful 
slave  Doricha,  as  part  at  least  of  the  reward  of  his 
venture. 

After  the  return  of  Sappho  and  her  husband 
from  their  flight  into  Sicily,  the  poet  lived  for 
many  years  at  Mitylene ;  but  she  is  supposed  to 
have  been  born  in  Eresso,  on  the  southwestern 
point  of  the  island,  where  the  ruins  of  the  acropolis 
and  remains  of  a  sea-wall  still  mark  the  site  of  the 
famous  town.  At  any  rate,  she  lived  there,  with 
her  husband  Kerkylas,  a  landed  proprietor  and  a 
person  of  consequence,  like  a  dame  of  noble  birth 
and  gentle  breeding  as  she  was ;  and  in  her  verse 
we  have  a  glimpse  of  her  walking  upon  the  sandy 
shore,  with  her  little  daughter,  the  beautiful  child 
whom  she  would  not  give  up  for  the  kingdom  of 
Lydia,  nor  for  heavenly  Lesbos  itself.  That  Sap- 
pho was  beautiful  as  her  image  on  the  ancient  coins 
represents  her,  and  that  she  was  consumed  by  pas- 
sion for  a  handsome  youth,  the  world  likes  to  be- 
lieve. But  Maximus  of  Tyre  says  that  she  was 
•  small  and  dark,  —  graces  are  not  so  plenty,  even 
in  heaven,  that  genius  and  beauty  can  be  lavished 
upon  one  person.  We  are  prone  to  insist  that  the 
poet  who  revels  in  imagination  and  sounds  the 
depth  of  passion  is  revealing  his  own  heart,  and 
that  the  tale  that  seems  so  real  must  be  a  per- 
sonal experience.  The  little  glimpse  we  have  of 
Sappho's  life  does  not  warrant  us  to  find  in  it  the 
passionate  tempest  of  her  burning  lyrics,  nor  is  it 


396  THE   ADVENTURERS 

consistent  with  her  social  position  that  she  should 
expose  upon  the  market-place  her  passion  for  the 
handsome  Phaon,  like  a  troubadour  of  the  Middle 
Ages  or  a  Zingara  of  Bohemia.  If  that  consuming 
fire  was  only  quenched  in  the  sea  at  the  foot  of 
"Leucadia's  far -projecting  rock  of  woe,"  at  least 
our  emotion  may  be  tempered  by  the  soothing 
knowledge  that  the  leap  must  have  been  taken 
when  the  enamored  singer  had  passed  her  sixtieth 
year. 

We  did  not  see  them  at  Mitylene,  but  travelers 
into  the  interior  speak  of  the  beautiful  women,  the 
descendants  of  kings'  daughters,  the  rewards  of 
Grecian  heroes ;  near  old  Eresso  the  women  pre- 
serve the  type  of  that  indestructible  beauty,  and 
in  the  large  brown  eyes,  voluptuous  busts,  and  elas- 
tic gait  one  may  deem  that  he  sees  the  originals  of 
the  antique  statues. 

Another  famous  woman  flits  for  a  moment  be- 
fore us  at  Lesbos.  It  is  the  celebrated  Empress 
Irene,  whose  cruelty  was  hardly  needed  to  preserve 
a  name  that  her  -talent  could  have  perpetuated. 
An  Athenian  virgin  and  an  orphan,  at  seventeen 
she  became  the  wife  of  Leo  IV.  (A.  D.  780),  and  at 
length  the  ruler  of  the  Eastern  Empire.  Left  the 
guardian  of  the  empire  and  her  son  Constantino 
VI.,  she  managed  both,  until  the  lad  in  his  matu- 
rity sent  his  mother  into  retirement.  The  restless 
woman  conspired  against  him;  he  fled,  was  cap- 
tured and  brought  to  the  palace  and  lodged  in  the 
porphyry  chamber  where  he  first  had  seen  the 
light,  and  where  he  last  saw  it ;  for  his  eyes  were 


A    STUDY    OF   NATIONALITIES  397 

put  out  by  the  order  of  Irene.  His  very  existence 
was  forgotten  in  the  depths  of  the  palace,  and  for 
several  years  the  ambitious  mother  reigned  with 
brilliancy  and  the  respect  of  distant  potentates, 
until  a  conspiracy  of  eunuchs  overturned  her  power, 
and  she  was  banished  to  Lesbos.  Here  history, 
which  delights  in  these  strokes  of  poetic  justice, 
represents  the  empress  earning  her  bread  by  the 
use  of  her  distaff. 

As  we  came  from  Mitylene  into  the  open  sea, 
the  view  was  surpassingly  lovely,  islands  green  and 
poetic,  a  coast  ever  retreating  and  advancing,  as  if 
in  coquetry  with  the  blue  waves,  purple  robing  the 
hills,  —  a  voyage  for  poets  and  lotus-eaters.  We 
were  coming  at  night  to  Tenedos,  to  which  the 
crafty  Greeks  withdrew  their  fleet  when  they  pre- 
tended to  abandon  the  siege,  and  to  old  Troy,  op- 
posite ;  we  should  be  able  to  feel  their  presence  in 
the  darkness. 

Our  steamer,  as  we  have  intimated,  was  a  study 
of  nationalities  and  languages,  as  well  as  of  man- 
ners. We  were  English,  American,  Greek,  Ital- 
ian, Turkish,  Arab,  Russian,  French,  Armenian, 
Egyptian,  Jew,  Georgian,  Abyssinian,  Nubian, 
German,  K norland,  Persian,  Kurd;  one  might  talk 
with  a  person  just  from  Mecca  or  Medina,  from 
Bagdad,  from  Calcutta,  from  every  Greek  or  Turk- 
ish island,  and  from  most  of  the  capitals  of  Europe. 
A  couple  of  Capuchins,  tonsured,  in  brown  serge 
'  with  hanging  crosses,  walked  up  and  down  amid 
the  throng  of  Christians,  Moslems,  and  pagans, 
withdrawn  from  the  world  while  in  it,  like  beings 


398  THE    ADVENTURERS 

of  a  new  sex.  There  was  a  couple  opposite  us  at 
table  whom  we  could  not  make  out,  —  either  re- 
cently married  or  recently  eloped,  the  man  appar- 
ently a  Turkish  officer,  and  his  companion  a  tall, 
showy  woman,  you  might  say  a  Frenchman's  idea 
of  physical  beauty,  a  little  like  a  wax  Madonna, 
but  with  nothing  holy  about  her ;  said  by  some  to 
be  a  Circassian,  by  others  to  be  a  French  grisette 
on  an  Eastern  tour;  but  she  spoke  Italian,  and 
might  be  one  of  the  Continental  countesses. 

The  square  occupied  by  the  emir  and  his  suite 
—  a  sort  of  bazaar  of  rugs  and  narghilehs  —  had 
music  all  day  long;  a  soloist,  on  three  notes,  sing- 
ing, in  the  Arab  drawl,  an  unending  improvised 
ballad,  and  accompanying  himself  on  the  mandolin. 
When  we  go  to  look  at  and  listen  to  him,  the  mu- 
sician betrays  neither  self -consciousness  nor  pride, 
unless  you  detect  the  latter  in  a  superior  smile  that 
plays  about  his  lips,  as  he  throws  back  his  head 
and  lets  his  voice  break  into  a  falsetto.  It  proba- 
bly does  not  even  occur  to  his  Oriental  conceit  that 
he  does  well,  —  that  his  race  have  taken  for  granted 
a  thousand  years,  —  and  he  could  not  be  instructed 
by  the  orchestra  of  Von  Bulow,  nor  be  astonished 
by  the  Lohengrin  of  Wagner. 

Among  the  adventurers  on  board  —  we  all  had 
more  or  less  the  appearance  of  experiments  in  that 
odd  assembly  —  I  particularly  liked  the  French 
prestidigitateur  Caseneau,  for  his  bold  eye,  utter 
self-possession,  and  that  indefinable  varnish  upon 
him,  which  belonged  as  much  to  his  dress  as  to 
his  manner,  and  suggested  the  gentleman  without 


CASENEAU  399 

concealing  the  adventurer.  He  had  a  taste  for 
antiquities,  and  wore  some  antique  gems,  which 
had  I  know  not  what  mysterious  about  them,  as  if 
he  had  inherited  them  from  an  Ephesian  magician 
or  a  Saracenic  doctor  of  the  black  art.  At  the 
table  after  dinner,  surrounded  by  French  and  Ital- 
ians, the  conjurer  exhibited  some  tricks  at  cards. 
I  dare  say  they  were  not  extraordinary,  yet  they 
pleased  me  just  as  well  as  the  manifestations  of 
the  spiritists.  One  of  them  I  noted.  The  trick- 
ster was  blindfolded.  A  gentleman  counted  out  a 
pack  of  cards,  and  while  doing  so  mentally  fixed 
upon  one  of  them  by  number.  Caseneau  took  the 
pack,  still  blinded,  and  threw  out  the  card  the 
gentleman  had  thought  of.  The  experiment  was 
repeated  by  skeptics,  who  suspected  a  confederate, 
but  the  result  was  always  the  same. 

The  Circassian  beauty  turned  out  to  be  a  Jewess 
from  Smyrna.  I  believe  the  Jewesses  of  that  luxu- 
rious city  imitate  all  the  kinds  of  beauty  in  the 
world. 

In  the  evening  the  Italians  were  grouped  around 
the  tables  in  the  saloon,  upon  which  cards  were  cast 
about,  matched,  sorted,  and  redistributed,  and 
there  were  little  piles  of  silver  at  the  corners,  the 
occasional  chinking  of  which  appeared  to  add  to 
the  interest  of  the  amusement.  On  deck  the  Kng- 
lish  and  Americans  were  singing  the  hymns  of  the 
Protestant  fait]i ;  and  in  the  lull  of  the  strains  of 
"O  mother  dear,  Jerusalem,"  you  might  hear  the 
twang  of  strings  and  the  whine  of  some  Arab 
improvisatore  on  the  forward  deck,  and  the  chink 


400  THE    ADVENTURERS 

of  changing  silver  below.  We  were  making  our 
way  through  a  superb  night,  —  a  thousand  people 
packed  so  closely  that  you  could  not  move  without 
stepping  into  a  harem  or  a  mass  of  Greek  pilgrims, 
—  singing  hymns,  gambling,  listening  to  a  recital 
of  the  deeds  of  Antar,  over  silver  waves,  under  a 
flooding  moon,  and  along  the  dim  shores  of  Asia. 
That  mysterious  continent  lay  in  the  obscurity  of 
the  past ;  here  and  there  solitary  lights,  from  some 
shepherd's  hut  in  the  hills  or  fortress  casemate  by 
the  shore,  were  the  rents  in  the  veil  through  which 
we  saw  antiquity. 


XXIII 

THROUGH  THE   DARDANELLES 

HE  Achille,  which  has  a  nose  for 
freight,  but  none  for  poetry,  did  not 
stop  at  Tenedos,  puffed  steadily  past 
the  plain  of  Troy,  turned  into  the 
broad  opening  of  the  Dardanelles,  and  by  daylight 
was  anchored  midway  between  the  Two  Castles. 
On  such  a  night,  if  ever,  one  might  see  the  evolu- 
tion of  shadowy  armies  upon  the  windy  plain,  —  if, 
indeed,  this  conspicuous  site  was  anything  more 
than  the  theatre  of  Homer's  creations,  —  the  spec- 
tators on  the  walls  of  Ilium,  the  Greeks  hastily 
embarking  on  their  ships  for  Tenedos,  the  joyful 
procession  that  drew  the  fatal  gift  into  the  impreg- 
nable walls. 

There  is  a  strong  current  southward  through  the 
Dardanelles,  which  swung  the  vessel  round  as  we 
came  to  anchor.  The  forts  which,  with  their  heavy 
modern  guns,  completely  command  this  strait,  are 
something  less  than  a  mile  and  a  half  apart,  and 
near  each  is  a  large  and  handsome  town,  — Khilid- 
bahri  on  the  European  shore  and  Chanak-Kalesi 
on  the  Asiatic.  The  latter  name  signifies  the  pot- 
tery-castle, and  is  derived  from  the  chief  inaimfac- 


402       THROUGH  THE  DARDANELLES 

tory  of  the  place ;  the  town  of  a  couple  of  thou- 
sand houses,  gayly  painted  and  decorated  in  lively 
colors,  lies  upon  a  sandy  flat  and  presents  a  very 
cheerful  appearance.  It  is  a  great  Asiatic  entre- 
pot for  European  products,  and  consular  flags  at- 
test its  commercial  importance. 

When  I  came  upon  deck  its  enterprising  traders 
had  already  boarded  the  steamer,  and  encumbered 
it  with  their  pottery,  which  found  a  ready  market 
with  the  pilgrims,  for  it  is  both  cheap  and  ugly. 
Perhaps  we  should  rather  say  fantastic  than  ugly. 
You  see  specimens  of  it  all  over  the  East,  and  in 
the  bazaars  of  Cairo,  Jerusalem,  and  Damascus  it 
may  be  offered  you  as  something  rare.  Whatever 
the  vessel  is,  — a  pitcher,  cup,  vase,  jar,  or  cream- 
pot,  —  its  form  is  either  that  of  some  impossible 
animal,  some  griffin,  or  dragon,  or  dog  of  the  un- 
der world,  or  its  spout  is  the  neck  and  head  of  some 
fantastic  monster.  The  ware  is  painted  in  the 
most  startling  reds,  greens,  yellows,  and  blacks, 
and  sometimes  gilt,  and  then  glazed.  It  is  alto- 
gether hideous,  and  fascinating  enough  to  drive 
the  majolica  out  of  favor. 

Above  these  two  towns  the  strait  expands  into 
a  sort  of  bay,  formed  on  the  north  by  a  promon- 
tory jutting  out  from  the  Asiatic  shore,  and  upon 
this  promontory  it  is  now  agreed  stood  old  Aby- 
dos ;  it  is  occupied  by  a  fort  which  grimly  regards 
a  corresponding  one  on  the  opposite  shore,  not  a 
mile  distant.  Here  Leander  swam  to  Hero,  Byron 
to  aquatic  fame,  and  here  Xerxes  laid  his  bridge. 
All  this  is  plain  to  be  seen ;  this  is  the  narrowest 


A    BEAUTIFUL   STREAM  403 

part  of  the  passage ;  exactly  opposite  this  sloping 
site  of  Abydos  is  a  depression  between  two  high 
cliffs,  the  only  point  where  the  Persian  could  have 
rested  the  European  extremity  of  his  bridge;  and 
it  surely  requires  no  stretch  of  the  imagination 
to  see  Hero  standing  upon  this  projecting  point 
holding  the  torch  for  her  lover. 

The  shore  is  very  pretty  each  side,  not  bold,  but 
quiet  river  scenery ;  yet  there  is  a  contrast ;  on  the 
Asiatic  horizon  are  mountains,  rising  behind  each 
other,  while  the  narrow  peninsula,  the  Thracian 
Chersonesus  of  the  ancients,  which  forms  the  west- 
ern bank  of  the  Dardanelles,  offers  only  a  range  of 
moderate  hills.  What  a  beautiful  stream,  indeed, 
is  this,  and  how  fond  history  has  been  of  enacting 
its  spectacles  upon  it !  How  the  civilizations  of 
the  East  and  the  West,  in  a  continual  flow  and 
reflow,  push  each  other  across  it !  With  a  sort  of 
periodic  regularity  it  is  the  scene  of  a  great  move- 
ment, and  from  age  to  age  the  destinies  of  the  race 
have  seemed  to  hang  upon  its  possession ;  and  from 
time  to  time  the  attention  of  the  world  is  concen- 
trated upon  this  water-street  between  two  conti- 
nents. Under  whatever  name,  the  Oriental  civili- 
zation has  been  a  misfortune,  and  the  Western  a 
blessing  to  the  border-land;  and  how  narrowly  has 
Europe,  more  than  once,  from  Xerxes  to  Chosroes, 
from  Omar  to  the  Osmanlis,  seemed  to  escape  the 
torrent  of  Eastern  slavery  !  Once  the  culture  of 
Greece  passed  these  limits,  and  annexed  all  Asia 
Minor  and  the  territory  as  far  as  the  Euphrates 
to  the  empire  of  intelligence.  Who  shall  say  that 


404       THROUGH  THE  DARDANELLES 

the  day  is  not  at  hand  when  the  ancient  movement 
of  free  thought,  if  not  of  Grecian  art  and  arms,  is 
about  to  be  renewed,  and  Europe  is  not  again-  to 
impose  its  laws  and  manners  upon  Little  Asia? 
The  conquest,  which  one  sees  going  on  under  his 
eyes,  is  not  indeed  with  the  pomp  of  armies,  but 
by  the  more  powerful  and  enduring  might  of  com- 
merce, intercourse,  and  the  weight  of  a  world's 
opinion  diffused  by  travel  and  literature.  The 
Osmanli  sits  supinely  and  watches  the  change; 
the  Greeks,  the  rajahs  of  all  religions,  establish 
schools,  and  the  new  generation  is  getting  ready 
for  the  revolution;  the  Turk  does  not  care  for 
schools.  That  it  may  be  his  fate  to  abandon  Eu- 
ropean Turkey  and  even  Constantinople,  he  ad- 
mits. But  it  is  plain  that  if  he  goes  thus  far  he 
must  go  farther;  and  that  he  must  surrender  a 
good  part  of  the  Roman  Eastern  Empire.  For 
any  one  can  see  that  the  Hellespont  could  not  be 
occupied  by  two  powers,  and  that  it  is  no  more 
possible  to  divide  the  control  of  the  Bosphorus 
than  it  is  that  of  the  Hudson  or  the  Thames. 

The  morning  was  cold,  and  the  temperature  as 
well  as  the  sky  admonished  us  that  we  were  pass- 
ing out  of  the  warm  latitude.  Twenty-five  miles 
from  the  Chang  and  Eng  forts  we  passed  near  biit 
did  not  call  at  Gallipoli,  an  ancient  city  with  few 
antiquities,  but  of  great  strategic  importance. 
Whoever  holds  it  has  the  key  to  Constantinople 
and  the  Black  Sea ;  it  was  seized  by  the  Moslems 
in  the  thirteenth  century,  before  they  imposed  the 
religion  of  the  Koran  upon  the  city  of  Constaii- 


THE    SEA    OF    MARMORA  405 

tine,  and  it  was  early  occupied  by  the  English  and 
French,  in  1854,  in  the  war  that  secured  that  city 
to  the  successor  of  the  Prophet. 

Entering  upon  the  Sea  of  Marmora,  the  "vexed 
Propontis,"  we  had  fortunately  smooth  water  but 
a  cold  north  wind.  The  Propontis  has  enjoyed  a 
nauseous  reputation  with  all  mariners,  ancient  and 
modern.  I  don't  know  that  its  form  has  anything 
to  do  with  it,  but  if  the  reader  will  take  the  trou- 
ble to  consult  a  map,  he  will  see  how  nearly  this 
bag  of  water,  with  its  two  ducts,  the  Bosphorus 
and  the  Hellespont,  resembles  a  human  stomach. 
There  is  nothing  to  be  seen  in  the  voyage  from 
(iallipoli  to  Constantinople,  except  the  island  of 
Marmora,  famous  for  the  quarries  which  furnish 
marbles  for  the  palaces  of  the  Bosphorus  and  for 
Eyoub  and  Scutarij  the  two  great  cities  of  the 
dead.  We  passed  near  enough  to  distinguish 
clearly  its  tine  perpendicular  cliffs. 

It  was  dark  before  we  saw  the  lights  of  Stam- 
boul  rise  out  of  the  water;  it  is  impossible,  at 
night,  to  enter  the  Golden  Horn  through  the  mazes 
of  shipping,  and  we  cast  anchor  outside.  The 
mile  or  two  of  gas-lights  along  the  promontory  of 
the  old  city  and  the  gleams  upon  the  coast  of  an- 
cient Chalcedon  were  impressive  and  exciting  to 
the  imagination,  but,  owing  to  the  lateness  of  our 
arrival,  we  lost  all  the  emotions  which  have  struck 
other  travelers  anything  but  dumb  upon  coming  in 
sight  of  the  capital  of  the  Moslem  Empire. 


XXIV 

CONSTANTINOPLE 

HE  capital  which  we  know  as  Con- 
stantinople, lying  in  two  continents, 
presents  itself  as  three  cities.  The 
long,  horn -shaped  promontory,  between 
the  Sea  of  Marmora  and  the  Golden  Horn,  is  the 
site  of  ancient  Byzantium,  which  Constantine 
baptized  with  his  own  name,  and  which  the  Turks 
call  Stamboul.  The  ancient  city  was  on  the  east- 
ern extremity,  now  known  as  Seraglio  Point;  its 
important  position  was  always  recognized,  and  it 
was  sharply  contended  for  by  the  Spartans,  the 
Athenians,  the  Macedonians,  and  the  Persians. 
Like  the  city  of  Romulus,  it  occupies  seven  hills, 
and  its  noble  heights  are  conspicuous  from  afar  by 
sea  or  land.  In  the  fourth  century  it  was  sur- 
rounded by  a  wall,  which  followed  the  water  on 
three  sides,  and  ran  across  the  base  of  the  promon- 
tory, over  four  miles  from  the  Seven  Towers  on  the 
Propontis  to  the  Cemetery  of  Eyoub  on  the  Golden 
Horn.  The  land-wall,  which  so  many  times  saved 
the  effeminate  city  from  the  barbarians  of  the  north 
and  the  Saracens  of  Arabia,  stands  yet  with  its 
battered  towers  and  score  of  crumbling  gates. 


THE   THREE    CITIES  407 

The  second  city,  on  a  blunt  promontory  between 
the  Golden  Horn  and  the  Bosphorus,  overlooks 
the  ancient  Byzantium,  and  is  composed  of  three 
districts,  —  Galata  and  Tophanna,  on  the  water 
and  climbing  up  the  hill ;  and  Pera,  which  crowns 
the  summit.  Galata  was  a  commercial  settlement 
of  the  thirteenth  century;  Pera  is  altogether 
modern. 

The  third  city  is  Scutari,  exactly  opposite  the 
mouth  of  the  Golden  Horn,  and  a  little  north  of 
ancient  Chalcedon,  which  was  for  over  a  thousand 
years  the  camp  of  successive  besieging  armies, 
Georgians,  Persians,  Saracens,  and  Turks. 

The  city  of  the  Crescent,  like  a  veiled  beauty 
of  the  harem,  did  not  at  once  disclose  to  us  its 
charms.  It  was  at  six  o'clock  in  the  morning  on 
the  eleventh  day  of  blooming  May,  that  we  landed 
on  the  dirty  quay  of  Tophanna.  The  morning  was 
cloudy,  cold,  misty,  getting  its  weather  from  the 
Black  Sea,  and  during  the  day  rain  fell  in  a  very 
Occidental  dreariness.  Through  the  mist  loomed 
the  heights  of  Seraglio  Point ;  and  a  hundred  min- 
aret peaks  and  domes  appeared  to  float  in  the  air 
above  the  veiled  city.  Along  the  floating  lower 
bridge,  across  the  Golden  Horn,  poured  an  unceas- 
ing procession  of  spectres;  caVques  were  shooting 
about  in  every  direction,  steamers  for  the  Bospho- 
rus, for  Scutari,  for  the  Islands,  were  momently 
arriving  and  departing  from  their  stations  below 
the  bridge,  and  the  huge  bulk  of  the  Turkish  iron- 
clads could  be  discerned  at  their  anchorage  before 
the  palace  of  Beshiktash.  The  scene  was  animated. 


408  CONSTANTINOPLE 

but  there  was  not  visible  as  much  shipping  as  1 
had  expected  to  see  in  this  great  port. 

The  customs'  official  on  the  quay  was  of  a  very 
inquisitive  turn  of  mind,  but  we  could  excuse  him 
on  the  ground  of  his  age  and  ignorance,  for  he  was 
evidently  endeavoring  to  repair  the  neglected  op- 
portunities of  his  youth.  Our  large  luggage  had 
gone  to  the  custom-house  in  charge  of  Abd-el-Atti, 
who  has  a  genius  for  free-trade,  and  only  our  small 
parcels  and  hand-bags  were  at  the  mercy  of  the  in- 
spector 011  the  quay.  But  he  insisted  upon  open- 
ing every  bag  and  investigating  every  article  of 
the  toilet  and  garment  of  the  night ;  he  even  ripped 
open  a  feather  pillow  which  one  of  the  ladies  car- 
ried with  her,  and  neither  the  rain  on  the  open 
dock  nor  our  respectable  appearance  saved  our 
effects  from  his  most  searching  attentions.  The 
discoveries  of  General  di  Cesnola  and  the  interest 
that  Europeans  take  in  antiquities  have  recently 
convinced  the  Turks  that  these  relics  must  have 
some  value,  and  an  order  had  been  issued  to  seize 
and  confiscate  all  curiosities  of  this  sort.  1  trem- 
bled, therefore,  when  the  inspector  got  his  hands 
upon  a  baby's  nursing-bottle,  which  I  had  brought 
from  Cyprus,  where  it  had  been  used  by  some 
Pho3iiician  baby  probably  three  thousand  years 
ago.  The  fellow  turned  it  round  and  regarded  it 
with  serious  ignorance  and  doubt. 

"What  is  that?  "  he  asked  Achmed. 

"Oh,  that's  nothing  but  a  piece  of  pottery, 
something  for  a  shild  without  his  mother,  1  *Hnk, 
—  it  is  nothing,  not  worth  two  paras." 


PORTERS    IN    PERA  409 

The  confiscator  of  antiquities  evidently  had  not 
the  slightest  knowledge  of  his  business;  he  hesi- 
tated, but  Achmed's  perfect  indifference  of  man- 
ner determined  him,  and  he  slowly  put  the  precious 
relic  back  into  the  box.  The  inspector  parted 
from  us  with  regret,  but  we  left  him  to  the  enjoy- 
ment of  a  virtue  unassailed  by  the  least  bribe,  —  an 
unusual,  and,  I  imagine,  an  unwelcome  possession 
in  this  region. 

Donkeys  were  not  to  be  had,  nor  carriages,  and 
we  climbed  on  foot  the  very  steep  hill  to  the  hotel 
in  Pera;  ascending  roughly  paved,  crooked  streets, 
lined  with  rickety  houses,  and  occasionally  mount- 
ing stairs  for  a  mile  through  a  quarter  that  has  the 
shabbiness  but  not  the  picturesqueness  of  the  Ori- 
ent. A  squad  of  porters  seized  our  luggage  and 
bore  it  before  us.  The  porters  are  the  beasts  of 
burden,  and  most  of  them  wear  heavy  saddles, 
upon  which  boxes  and  trunks  can  be  strapped. 
No  drays  were  visible.  Heavy  burdens,  hogs- 
heads, barrels,  and  cases  of  goods  were  borne  be- 
tween two  long  stout  poles  carried  by  four  athletic 
men ;  as  they  move  along  the  street,  staggering 
under  the  heavy  load,  everybody  is  obliged,  preci- 
pitately, to  make  way  for  them,  for  their  impetus 
is  such  that  they  cannot  check  their  career.  We 
see  these  gigantic  fellows  at  every  street-corner, 
with  their  long  poles,  waiting  for  a  job.  Sedan- 
chairs,  which  were  formerly  in  much  request,  are 
gradually  disappearing,  though  there  is  nothing 
at  present  to  exactly  take  the  place  of  these  lum- 
bering conveyances.  Carriages  increase  every 


410  CONSTANTINOPLE 

year,  but  they  are  expensive,  and  they  can  only  as- 
cend the  height  of  Pera  by  a  long  circuit.  The 
place  of  the  sedan  and  the  carriage  is,  however, 
to  some  extent  supplied  by  a  railway  in  Galata, 
the  cars  of  which  are  drawn  up  by  a  stationary 
engine.  And  on  each  side  of  the  Golden  Horn  is 
a  horse-railway,  running  wherever  the  ground  is 
practicable. 

To  one  coming  from  the  West  I  suppose  that 
Constantinople  would  present  a  very  mixed  and 
bizarre  appearance,  and  that  he  would  be  im- 
pressed by  the  silence  of  the  busiest  streets,  in 
which  the  noise  of  wheels  and  the  hum  of  a  West- 
ern capital  is  wanting.  But  to  one  coming  from 
the  East,  Galata  and  Pera  seem  a  rather  vulgar- 
ized European  town.  The  Frank  dress  predomi- 
nates, although  it  is  relieved  by  the  red  fez,  which 
the  Turks  generally  and  many  Europeans  wear. 
Variety  enough  there  is  in  costumes,  but  the  Gre- 
cian, the  Bulgarian,  the  Albanian,  etc.,  have  taken 
the  place  of  the  purely  Oriental;  and  the  traveler 
in  the  Turkish  capital  to-day  beholds  not  only  the 
conflux  of  Asia  and  Europe,  but  the  transition, 
in  buildings,  in  apparel,  in  manners,  to  modern 
fashions.  Few  veiled  women  are  seen,  and  they 
wear  a  white  strip  of  gauze  which  conceals  noth- 
ing. The  street  hawkers,  the  sellers  of  sweets, 
of  sponges,  and  of  cakes,  are  not  more  peculiar  in 
their  cries  than  those  of  London  and  Paris. 

When  we  had  climbed  the  hill,  we  came  into 
the  long  main  street  of  Pera,  the  street  of  the  chief 
shops,  the  hotels  and  foreign  embassies,  a  quarter 


THE    FLOATING   BRIDGE  411 

of  the  city  which  has  been  burned  over  as  often  as 
San  Francisco,  and  is  now  built  up  substantially 
with  stone  and  brick,  and  contains  very  little  to 
interest  the  seeker  of  novelty.  After  we  had  se- 
cured rooms,  and  breakfasted,  at  the  hotel  By- 
zance,  we  descended  the  hill  again  to  the  water, 
and  crossed  the  long,  floating  bridge  to  Stamboul. 
This  bridge  is  a  very  good  symbol  of  the  Sultan's 
Empire ;  its  wooden  upper  works  are  decayed,  its 
whole  structure  is  rickety,  the  floats  that  support 
it  are  unevenly  sunken,  so  that  the  bridge  is  a 
succession  of  swells  and  hollows;  it  is  crowded  by 
opposing  streams  of  the  most  incongruous  people, 
foot  and  horse  jumbled  together;  it  is  encumbered 
by  venders  of  eatables  and  auctioneers  of  cheap 
wares,  and  one  has  to  pay  toll  to  cross  it.  But  it 
is  a  microcosm  of  the  world.  In  an  hour  one  may 
see  pass  there  every  nationality,  adventurers  from 
every  clime,  traders,  priests,  sailors,  soldiers,  for- 
tune-hunters of  Europe,  rude  peasants  of  the  pro- 
vinces, sleek  merchants  of  the  Orient,  darwishes, 
furtive-eyed  Jews;  here  is  a  Circassian  beauty 
seeking  a  lover  through  the  carriage  window;  here 
a  Turkish  grandee  on  a  prancing,  richly  capari- 
soned horse;  here  moves  a  squad  of  black  soldiers, 
and  now  the  bridge  shakes  under  the  weight  of  a 
train  of  Hying  artillery. 

The  water  is  alive  with  the  ticklish  caiques. 
The  caique  is  a  long  narrow  boat,  on  the  model  of 
the  Indian  birch-bark  canoe,  and  as  thin  and  light 
on  the  water;  the  passenger,  if  he  accomplishes 
the  feat  of  getting  into  one  without  overturning  it, 


412  CONSTANTINOPLE 

* 

sits  upon  the  bottom,  careful  not  to  wink  and  up- 
set it ;  the  oars  have  a  heavy  swell  near  the  handle, 
to  counterbalance  the  weight  of  the  long  blade, 
and  the  craft  skims  the  water  with  swiftness  and  a 
most  agreeable  motion.  The  caiques  are  as  nu- 
merous on  the  water  as  the  yellow,  mangy  dogs 
on  shore,  and  the  two  are  the  most  characteristic 
things  in  Constantinople. 

We  spent  a  good  part  of  the  day  in  wandering 
about  the  bazaars  of  Stamboul,  and  we  need  not 
repeat  what  has  been  heretofore  said  of  these  pecu- 
liar shops.  During  our  stay  in  the  city  we  very 
thoroughly  explored  them,  and  visited  most  of  the 
great  khans,  where  are  to  be  found  the  silks  of 
Broussa,  of  Beyrout  and  Damascus,  the  rugs  of 
Persia,  the  carpets  of  Asia  Minor,  the  arms  and 
the  cunning  work  in  gold,  silver,  and  jewels  gath- 
ered from  every  region  between  Ispahan  and  Dar- 
four.  We  found  the  bazaars  extensive,  well  filled, 
and  dear,  at  least  the  asking  price  was  enormous, 
and  we  wanted  the  time  and  patience  which  are 
needed  for  the  slow  siege  of  reducing  the  mer- 
chants to  decent  terms.  The  bazaars  are  solidly 
roofed  arcades,  at  once  more  cleanly  and  less  pic- 
turesque than  those  of  Cairo,  and  not  so  Oriental 
or  attractive.  Book-stalls,  which  are  infrequent 
in  Cairo,  abound  here;  and  the  long  arcades  lined 
with  cases  of  glittering  gems,  enormous  pearls, 
sparkling  diamonds,  emeralds  fit  for  the  Pope's 
finger,  and  every  gold  and  silver  temptation,  ex- 
ceed anything  else  in  the  East  in  magnificence. 
And  yet  they  have  a  certain  modern  air,  and  you 


AN   OLD   MOSQUE  413 

do  not  expect  to  find  in  them  those  quaint  and 
fascinating  antique  patterns  of  goldsmiths'  work, 
the  inherited  skill  of  the  smiths  of  the  Pharaohs, 
which  draw  you  into  the  dingy  recesses  of  the 
Copt  artificers  in  the  city  of  the  Nile. 

From  the  Valideh  Khan  we  ascended  to  the  pub- 
lic square,  where  stands  the  Seraskier's  Fire-tower; 
a  paved,  open  place,  surrounded  by  government 
buildings  of  considerable  architectural  pretensions, 
and  dedicated,  I  should  say,  to  drumming,  to  the 
shifting  about  of  squads  of  soldiers,  and  the  can- 
tering hither  and  thither  of  Turkish  beys.  Near  it 
is  the  old  mosque  of  Sultan  Beyezid  II.,  which, 
with  its  magnificent  arabesque  gates,  makes  a  fine 
external  impression.  The  outer  court  is  surrounded 
by  a  cloister  with  columns  of  verd-antique  and  por- 
phyry, inclosing  a  fountain  and  three  stately,  ven- 
erable trees.  The  trees  and  the  arcades  are  alive 
with  doves,  and,  as  we  entered,  more  than  a  thou- 
sand flew  towards  us  in  a  cloud,  with  a  great  rus- 
tling and  cooing.  They  are  protected  as  an  almost 
sacred  appendage  of  the  mosque,  and  are  said  to 
be  bred  from  a  single  pair  which  the  Sultan  bought 
of  a  poor  woman  and  presented  to  the  house  he 
had  built,  three  centuries  and  a  half  ago.  This 
mosque  has  also  another  claim  to  the  gratitude  of 
animals;  for  all  the  dogs  of  Stamboul,  none  of 
whom  have  any  home  but  the  street,  nor  any  other 
owner  than  the  Prophet,  resort  here  every  Friday, 
as  regularly,  if  not  as  piously,  as  the  Sultan  goes 
to  pray,  and  receive  their  weekly  bread. 

Near  this  mosque  are  lines  of  booths  and  open- 


414  CONSTANTINOPLE 

air  shops,  which  had  a  fascination  for  me  as  long 
as  I  remained  in  the  city.  They  extend  from  the 
trees  in  the  place  of  the  mosque  down  through 
lanes  to  the  bazaars.  The  keepers  of  them  were 
typical  Orientals,  honest  Jews,  honest  Moslems, 
withered  and  one-eyed  waiters  on  Providence  and  a 
good  bargain,  suave,  gracious,  patient,  gowned  and 
turbaned,  sitting  cross-legged  behind  their  trays 
and  show-cases.  These  are  the  dealers  in  stones, 
both  precious  and  common,  in  old  and  new  orna- 
ments, and  the  thousand  cheap  adornments  in  glass 
and  metal  which  the  humbler  classes  love.  Here 
are  heaps  of  blood-stones,  of  carnelians,  of  agates, 
of  jasper,  of  onyx,  dishes  of  turquoise,  strings  of 
doubtful  pearls,  barbarous  rings  and  brooches, 
charms  and  amulets,  —  a  feast  of  color  for  the  eye, 
and  a  sight  to  kindle  the  imagination.  For  these 
baubles  came  out  of  the  recesses  of  the  Orient, 
were  gathered  by  wild  tribes  in  remote  deserts, 
and  transported  by  caravan  to  this  common  mart. 
These  dealers  buy  of  the  Persian  merchants,  and 
of  adventurous  Jew  travelers  who  range  all  the 
deserts  from  Teheran  to  Upper  Nubia  in  search 
of  these  shining  stones.  Some  of  the  turquoises 
are  rudely  set  in  silver  rings,  but  most  of  them 
are  merely  glued  to  the  end  of  little  sticks ;  these 
generally  are  the  refuse  of  the  trade,  for  the  finer 
stones  go  to  the  .great  jewelers  in  the  bazaar,  or 
to  the  Western  markets.  A  large  and  perfect  tur- 
quoise of  good  color  is  very  rare,  and  commands  a 
large  price ;  but  the  cunning  workmen  of  Persia 
have  a  method  of  at  once  concealing  the  defects  of 


A   MYSTERIOUS   TRADER  415 

a  good-sized  turquoise  which  has  the  true  color, 
and  at  the  same  time  enhancing  its  value,  by  en- 
graving upon  it  some  sentence  from  the  Koran,  or 
some  word  which  is  a  charm  against  the  evil  eye ; 
the  skill  of  the  engraver  is  shown  in  fitting  his  let- 
ters and  flourishes  to  the  flaws  in  the  surface  of 
the  stone.  To  further  hide  any  appearance  of  im- 
perfection, the  engraved  lines  are  often  gilded. 
With  a  venerable  Moslem,  who  sat  day  after  day 
under  a  sycamore -tree,  I  had  great  content,  and 
we  both  enjoyed  the  pleasure  of  endless  bargain- 
ing without  cheating  each  other,  for  except  in  some 
trifles  we  never  came  to  an  exact  agreement.  He 
was  always  promising  me  the  most  wonderful  things 
for  the  next  day,  which  he  would  procure  from  a 
mysterious  Jew  friend  who  carried  on  a  clandestine 
commerce  with  some  Bedawee  in  Arabia.  When 
I  was  seated,  he  would  pull  from  his  bosom  a 
knotted  silk  handkerchief,  and,  carefully  untying 
it,  produce  a  talisman,  presenting  it  between  his 
thumb  and  finger,  with  a  lift  of  the  eyebrows  and 
a  cluck  of  the  tongue  that  expressed  the  rapture  I 
woidd  feel  at  the  sight  of  it.  To  be  sure,  I  found 
it  a  turquoise  set  in  rude  silver,  faded  to  a  sickly 
green,  and  not  worth  sixpence;  but  I  handed  it 
back  with  a  sigh  that  such  a  jewel  was  beyond  my 
means,  and  intimated  that  something  less  costly, 
and  of  a  blue  color,  would  suit  me  as  well.  We 
were  neither  of  us  deceived,  while  we  maintained 
the  courtesies  of  commercial  intercourse.  Some- 
times lie  would  produce  from  his  bosom  an  emerald 
of  real  value  or  an  opal  of  lovely  lines,  and  occa- 


416  CONSTANTINOPLE 

sionally  a  stone  in  some  peculiar  setting  which  ] 
had  admired  the  day  before  in  the  jewelry  bazaar; 
for  these  trinkets,  upon  which  the  eye  of  the  trav- 
eler has  been  seen  longingly  to  rest,  are  shifted 
about  among  this  mysterious  fraternity  to  meet 
him  again.  I  suppose  it  was  known  all  over  Stam- 
boul  that  a  Frank  had  been  .looking  for  a  Persian 
amulet.  As  long  as  I  sat  with  my  friend,  I  never 
saw  him  actually  sell  anything,  but  he  seemed  to 
be  the  centre  of  mysterious  transactions;  furtive 
traders  continually  came  to  him  to  borrow  or  return 
a  jewel,  or  to  exchange  a  handful  of  trumpery. 
Delusive  old  man!  I  had  no  confidence  in  you, 
but  I  would  go  far  to  pass  another  day  in  your 
tranquil  society.  How  much  more  agreeable  you 
were  than  the  young  Nubian  at  an  opposite  stand, 
who  repelled  purchasers  by  his  supreme  indiffer- 
ence, and  met  all  my  feeble  advances  with  the  toss 
of  the  head  and  the  cluck  in  the  left  cheek,  which 
is  the  peremptory  "no"  in  Nubia. 

In  this  quarter  are  workers  in  shell  and  ivory, 
the  makers  of  spoons  of  tortoise-shell  with  han- 
dles of  ivory  and  coral,  the  fabricators  of  combs, 
dealers  in  books,  and  a  long  street  of  little  shops 
devoted  to  the  engraving  of  seals.  To  wander 
about  among  these  craftsmen  is  one  of  the  chief 
pleasures  of  the  traveler.  Vast  as  Stamboul  is, 
if  you  remove  from  it  the  mosques  and  nests  of 
bazaars,  it  would  not  be  worth  a  visit. 


XXV 


THE  SERAGLIO   AND  ST.   SOPHIA,   HIPPO- 
DROME,  ETC. 

AVING  procured  a  firman,  we  de- 
voted a  day  to  the  old  Seraglio  and 
some  of  the  principal  mosques  of 
Stamboul.  After  an  occupation  of  fif- 
teen centuries  as  a  royal  residence,  the  Seraglio 
has  been  disused  for  nearly  forty  years,  and  fire, 
neglect,  and  decay  have  done  their  work  on  it,  so 
that  it  is  but  a  melancholy  reminiscence  of  its 
former  splendor.  It  occupies  the  ancient  site  of 
Byzantium,  upon  the  Point,  and  is  inclosed  by  a 
crumbling  wall  three  miles  in  circuit.  No  royal 
seat  in  the  world  has  a  more  lovely  situation. 
Upon  the  summit  of  the  promontory,  half  con- 
cealed in  cypresses,  is  the  cluster  of  buildings,  of 
all  ages  and  degrees  of  cheapness,  in  which  are  the 
imperial  apartments  and  offices ;  on  the  slopes  to- 
wards the  sea  are  gardens,  terraces,  kiosks,  and 
fountains. 

We  climbed  up  the  hill  on  the  side  towards 
Pera,  through  a  shabby  field,  that  had  almost  the 
appearance  of  a  city  dumping-ground,  and  through 
a  neglected  grove  of  cypresses,  where  some  deer 


418  THE    SERAGLIO 

were  feeding,  and  came  round  to  the  main  en- 
trance, a  big,  ugly  pavilion  with  eight  openings 
over  the  arched  porte,  —  the  gate  which  is  known 
the  world  over  a,s  the  Sublime  Porte.  Through 
this  we  passed  into  a  large  court,  and  thence  to  the 
small  one  into  which  the  Sultan  only  is  permitted 
to  ride  on  horseback.  In  the  centre  of  this  is  a 
fountain  where  formerly  pashas  foreordained  to 
lose  their  heads  lost  them.  On  the  right,  a  low 
range  of  buildings  covered  with  domes  but  no 
chimneys,  are  the  royal  kitchens;  there  are  nine 
of  them, — one  for  the  Sultan,  one  for  the  chief 
sultanas,  and  so  on  down  to  the  one  devoted  to  the 
cooking  of  the  food  for  the  servants.  Hundreds 
of  beasts,  hecatombs,  were  slaughtered  daily  and 
cooked  here  to  feed  the  vast  household.  From 
this  court  open  the  doors  into  the  halls  and  divans 
and  various  apartments;  one  of  them,  leading  into 
the  interior,  is  called  the  Gate  of  Felicity;  in  the 
old  times  that  could  only  be  called  a  gate  of  feli- 
city which  let  a  person  out  of  this  spider's  parlor. 
In  none  of  these  rooms  is  there  anything  specially 
attractive;  cheap  magnificence  in  decay  is  only 
melancholy. 

We  were  better  pleased  in  the  gardens,  where 
we  looked  upon.  Galata  and  Pera,  upon  the  Golden 
Horn  and  the  long  bridges  streaming  with  their 
picturesque  processions,  upon  the  Bosphorus  and 
its  palaces,  and  thousands  of  sails,  steamers,  and 
caVques,  and  the  .shining  heights  of  Scutari. 
Overhanging  the  slope  is  the  kiosk  or  summer 
palace  of  Sultan  Moorad,  a  Saracenic  octagonal 


THE   TREASURE-ROOM  419 

structure,  the  interior'  walls  lined  with  Persian 
tiles,  the  ceilings  painted  in  red  arabesques  and 
gilded  in  mosaics,  the  gates  of  bronze  inlaid  with 
mother-of-pearl;  a  most  charming  building,  said 
to  be  in  imitation  of  a  kiosk  of  Bagdad.  In  it  we 
saw  the  Sultan's  private  library,  a  hundred  or  two 
volumes  in  a  glass  case,  that  had  no  appearance 
of  having  been  read  by  either  the  Sultan  or  his 
wife. 

The  apartment  in  the  Seraglio  which  is  the  ob- 
ject of  curiosity  and  desire  is  the  treasure-room. 
I  suppose  it  is  the  richest  in  the  world  in  gems;  it 
is  certainly  a  most  wearisome  place,  and  gave  me 
a  contempt  for  earthly  treasure.  In  the  centre 
stands  a  Persian  throne,  —  a  chair  upon  a  board 
platform,  and  both  incrusted  with  rubies,  pearls, 
emeralds,  diamonds;  there  are  toilet-tables  cov- 
ered to  the  feet  with  diamonds,  pipe-stems  glisten- 
ing with  huge  diamonds,  old  armor  thickly  set  with 
precious  stones,  saddle-cloths  and  stirrups  stiff 
with  diamonds  and  emeralds,  robes  embroidered 
with  pearls.  Nothing  is  so  cheap  as  wealth  lav- 
ished in  this  manner ;  at  first  we  were  dazzled  by 
the  flashing  display,  but  after  a  time  these  heaps 
of  gems  seemed  as  common  in  our  eyes  as  pebbles 
in  the  street.  I  did  not  even  covet  an  emerald  as 
large  as  my  fist,  nor  a  sword-hilt  in  which  were 
fifteen  diamonds,  each  as  large  as  the  end  of  my 
thumb,  nor  a  carpet  sown  with  pearls,  some  of 
which  were  of  the  size  of  pigeon's  eg<>'s,  nor 

1       O  C5  ~ 

aigrettes  which  were  blazing  with  internal  fires, 
nor  chairs  of  state,  clocks  and  vases,  the  whole 


420  THE   SERAGLIO 

surfaces  of  which  were  on  fire  with  jewels.  I  have 
seen  an  old  oaken  table,  carved  in  the  fifteenth 
century,  which  gave  me  more  pleasure  than  one  of 
lapis  lazuli,  which  is  exhibited  as  the  most  costly 
article  in  this  collection ;  though  it  is  inlaid  with 
precious  stones,  and  the  pillars  that  support  the 
mirror  are  set  with  diamonds,  and  the  legs  and 
claws  are  a  mass  of  diamonds,  rubies,  carbuncles, 
emeralds,  topazes,  etc. ,  and  huge  diamond  pendants 
ornament  it,  and  the  deep  fringe  in  front  is  alto- 
gether of  diamonds.  This  is  but  a  barbarous,  os- 
tentatious, and  tasteless  use  of  the  beautiful,  and  I 
suppose  gives  one  an  idea  of  the  inartistic  magni- 
ficence of  the  Oriental  courts  in  centuries  gone  by. 
This  treasure-house  has,  I  presume,  nothing 
that  belonged  to  the  Byzantine  emperors  before 
the  Moslem  conquest,  some  of  whom  exceeded  in 
their  magnificence  any  of  the  Osmanli  sultans. 
Arcadius,  the  first  Eastern  emperor  after  the  di- 
vision of  the  Roman  world,  rivaled,  in  the  ap- 
pointments of  his  palace  (which  stood  upon  this 
spot)  and  in  his  dress,  the  magnificence  of  the 
Persian  monarchs;  and  perhaps  the  luxurious 
califs  of  Bagdad  at  a  later  day  did  not  equal  his 
splendor.  His  robes  were  of  purple,  a  color  re- 
served exclusively  for  his  sacred  person,  and  of 
silk,  embroidered  with  gold  dragons;  his  diadem 
was  of  gold  set  with  gems  of  inestimable  worth ; 
his  throne  was  massy  gold,  and  when  he  went 
abroad  he  rode  in  a  chariot  of  solid,  pure  gold, 
drawn  by  two  milk-white  mules  shining  in  harness 
and  trappings  of  gold. 


A    CHURCH    MILITANT  421 

No  spot  on  earth  has  been  the  scene  of  such 
luxury,  cruelty,  treachery,  murder,  infidelity  of 
women,  and  rapacity  of  men,  as  this  site  of  the  old 
palace ;  and  the  long  record  of  the  Christian  em- 
perors —  the  occasionally  interrupted  anarchy  and 
usurpation  of  a  thousand  years  —  loses  nothing  in 
these  respects  in  comparison  with  the  Turkish  oc- 
cupation, although  the  world  shudders  at  the  un- 
revealed  secrets  of  the  Seraglio.  At  least  we  may 
suppose  that  nobody's  conscience  was  violated  if  a 
pretty  woman  was  occasionally  dropped  into  the 
Bosphorus,  and  there  was  the  authority  of  custom 
for  the  strangling  of  all  the  children  of  the  sisters 
of  the  Sultan,  so  that  the  succession  might  not  be 
embarrassed.  In  this  court  is  the  c«</e,  a  room 
accessible  only  by  a  window,  where  the  royal  chil- 
dren were  shut  up  to  keep  them  from  conspiracy 
against  the  throne ;  and  there  Sultan  Abdul  Aziz 
spent  some  years  of  his  life. 

We  went  from  the  treasure-room  to  the  ancient 
and  large  Church  of  St.  Irene,  which  is  now  the 
arsenal  of  the  Seraglio,  and  become,  one  might 
say,  a  church  militant.  The  nave  and  aisles  are 
stacked  with  arms,  the  walls,  the.  holy  apse,  the 
pillars,  are  cased  in  guns,  swords,  pistols,  and  ar- 
mor, arranged  in  fanciful  patterns,  and  with  an  in- 
genuity.I  have  seen  nowhere  else.  Here  are  pre- 
served battle-flags  and  famous  trophies,  an  armlet 
of  Tamerlane,  a  sword  of  Scanderbeg,  and  other 
pieces  of  cold,  pliant  steel  that  have  a  reputation 
for  many  murders.  There  is  no  way  so  sure  to 
universal  celebrity  as  wholesale  murder.  Adjoin- 


422  ST.  SOPHIA 

ing  the  arsenal  is  a  museum  of  Greek  and  Roman 
antiquities  of  the  city,  all  in  Turkish  disorder ;  the 
Cyprus  Collections,  sent  by  General  di  Cesnola, 
are  flung  upon  shelves  or  lie  in  heaps  unarranged, 
and  most  of  the  cases  containing  them  had  not 
been  opened.  Near  this  is  an  interesting  museum 
of  Turkish  costumes  for  the  past  five  hundred  years, 
—  rows  on  rows  of  ghastly  wax  figures  clad  in  the 
garments  of  the  dead.  All  of  them  are  ugly,  many 
of  them  are  comical  in  their  exaggeration.  The 
costumes  of  the  Janizaries  attract  most  attention, 
perhaps  from  the  dislike  with  which  we  regard 
those  cruel  mercenaries,  who  deposed  and  decapi- 
tated sultans  at  their  will,  and  partly  because  many 
of  the  dresses  seem  more  fit  for  harlequins  or 
eunuchs  of  the  harem  than  for  soldiers. 

When  the  Church  of  Santa  Sophia,  the  House 
of  Divine  Wisdom,  was  finished,  and  Justinian 
entered  it,  accompanied  only  by  the  patriarch,  and 
ran  from  the  porticos  to  the  pulpit  with  out- 
stretched arms,  crying,  "Solomon,  I  have  sur- 
passed thee  !"  it  was  doubtless  the  most  magnifi- 
cently decorated  temple  that  had  ever  stood  upon 
the  earth.  The  exterior  was  as  far  removed  in 
simple  grandeur  as  it  was  in  time  from  the  still 
matchless  Doric  temples  of  Athens  and  of  Pajstum, 
or  from  the  ornate  and  lordly  piles  of  Ba'albek ; 
but  the  interior  surpassed  in  splendor  almost  the . 
conception  of  man.  The  pagan  temples  of  anti- 
quity had  been  despoiled,  the  quarries  of  the  known 
world  had  been  ransacked  for  marbles  of  various 
hues  and  textures  to  enrich  it;  and  the  gold,  the 


A    MAGNIFICENT    BUILDING  423 

silver,  the  precious  stones,  employed  in  its  decora- 
tion, surpassed  in  measure  the  barbaric  ostentation 
of  the  Temple  at  Jerusalem.  Among  its  forest  of 
columns,  one  recognized  the  starred  syenite  from 
the  First  Cataract  of  the  Nile;  the  white  marble 
of  Phrygia,  striped  with  rose;  the  green  of  La- 
conia,  and  the  blue  of  Libya;  the  black  Celtic, 
white  -  veined,  and  the  white  Bosphorus,  black- 
veined;  polished  shafts  which  had  supported  the 
roof  of  the  Temple  of  the  Deliaii  Apollo,  others 
which  had  beheld  the  worship  of  Diana  at  Ephesus 
and  of  Pallas  Athene  on  the  Acropolis,  and,  yet 
more  ancient,  those  that  had  served  in  the  mys- 
terious edifices  of  Osiris  and  Isis ;  while,  more  con- 
spicuous and  beautiful  than  all,  were  the  eight  col- 
umns of  porphyry,  which,  transported  by  Aurelian 
from  the  Temple  of  the  Sun  at  Heliopolis  to  Rome, 
the  pious  Marina  had  received  as  her  dowry  and 
dedicated  to  the  most  magnificent  building  ever 
reared  to  the  worship  of  the  True  God,  and  fitly 
dominating  the  shores  of  Europe  and  Asia. 

One  reads  of  doors  of  cedar,  amber,  and  ivory; 
of  hundreds  of  sacred  vessels  of  pure  gold,  of  ex- 
quisitely wrought  golden  candelabra,  and  crosses 
of  an  hundred  pounds'  weight  each;  of  a  score  of 
books  of  the  Evangelists,  the  gold  covers  of  which 
weighed  twenty  pounds ;  of  golden  lilies  and  golden 
trumpets ;  of  forty-two  thousand  chalice-cloths  em- 
broidered with  pearls  and  jewels ;  and  of  the  great 
altar,  for  which  gold  was  too  cheap  a  material,  a 
mass  of  the  most  precious  and  costly  stones  im- 
bedded in  gold  and  silver.  We  may  recall  also 


424  ST.  SOPHIA 

the  arches  and  the  clear  spaces  of  the  walls  inlaid 
with  marbles  and  covered  with  brilliant  mosaics. 
It  was  Justinian's  wish  to  pave  the  floor  with  plates 
of  gold,  but,  restrained  by  the  fear  of  the  avarice 
of  his  successors,  he  laid  it  in  variegated  marbles, 
which  run  in  waving  lines,  imitating  the  flowing 
of  rivers  from  the  four  corners  to  the  vestibules. 
But  the  wonder  of  the  edifice  was  the  dome,  one 
hundred  and  seven  feet  in  span,  hanging  in  the 
air  one  hundred  and  eighty  feet  above  the  pave- 
ment. The  aerial  lightness  of  its  position  is  in- 
creased by  the  two  half  domes  of  equal  span  and 
the  nine  cupolas  which  surround  it. 

More  than  one  volume  has  been  exclusively  de- 
voted to  a  description  of  the  Mosque  of  St.  Sophia, 
and  less  than  a  volume  would  not  suffice.  But  the 
traveler  will  not  see  the  ancient  glories.  If  he  ex- 
pects anything  approaching  the  exterior  richness 
and  grandeur  of  the  cathedrals  of  Europe,  or  the 
colossal  proportions  of  St.  Peter's  at  Rome,  or  the 
inexhaustible  wealth  of  the  interior  of  St.  Mark's 
at  Venice,  he  will  be  disappointed.  The  area  of 
St.  Peter's  exceeds  that  of  the  grand  Piazza  of  St. 
Mark,  while  St.  Sophia  is  only  two  hundred  and 
thirty -five  feet  broad  by  three  hundred  and  fifty 
feet  long;  and  while  the  Church  of  St.  Mark  has 
been  accumulating  spoils  of  plunder  and  of  piety 
for  centuries,  the  Church  of  the  Divine  Wisdom 
has  been  ransacked  by  repeated  pillages  and  reduced 
to  the  puritan  plainness  of  the  Moslem  worship. 

Exceedingly  impressive,  however,  is  the  first 
view  of  the  interior;  we  stood  silent  with  wonder 


MOSQUE   OF    ST.    SOPHIA 


AN    IMPRESSIVE   INTERIOR  425 

and  delight  in  the  presence  of  the  noble  columns, 
the  bold  soaring-  arches,  the  dome  in  the  sky.  The 
temple  is  flooded  with  light,  perhaps  it  is  too 
bright ;  the  old  mosaics  and  paintings  must  have 
softened  it ;  and  we  found  very  offensive  the  Ara- 
bic inscriptions  on  the  four  great  arches,  written 
in  characters  ten  yards  long.  They  are  the  names 
of  companions  of  the  Prophet,  but  they  look  like 
sign-boards.  Another  disagreeable  impression  is 
produced  by  the  position  of  the  J7 ihrab,  or  prayer- 
niche  ;  as  this  must  be  in  the  direction  of  Mecca, 
it  is  placed  at  one  side  of  the  apse,  and  everything 
in  the  mosque  is  forced  to  conform  to  it.  Thus 
everything  is  askew ;  the  pulpits  are  set  at  hateful 
angles,  and  the  stripes  of  the  rugs  on  the  floor  all 
run  diagonally  across.  When  one  attempts  to 
walk  from  the  entrance,  pulled  one  way  by  the 
architectural  plan,  and  the  other  by  the  religious 
diversion  of  it,  he  has  a  sensation  of  being  in- 
toxicated. 

Gone  from  this  temple  are  the  sacred  relics 
which  edified  the  believers  of  former  ages,  such  as 
the  trumpets  that  blew  down  Jericho  and  planks 
from  the  Ark  of  Noah,  but  the  Moslems  have 
prodigies  to  replace  them.  The  most  curious  of 
these  is  the  sweating  marble  column,  which  emits 
a  dampness  that  cures  diseases.  1  inserted  nr\ 
hand  in  a  cavity  which  has  been  dug  in  it,  and 
certainly  experienced  a  clammy  sensation.  It  is 
said  to  sweat  most  early  in  the  morning.  I  had 
the  curiosity  to  ascend  the  gallery  to  see  the  seat 
of  the  courtesan  and  Empress  Theodora,  daughter 


426  ST.  SOPHIA 

of  the  keeper  of  the  bears  of  the  circus,  —  a  public 
and  venal  pantomimist,  who,  after  satisfying  the 
immoral  curiosity  of  her  contemporaries  in  many 
cities,  illustrated  the  throne  of  the  Caesars  by  her 
talents,  her  intrigues,  and  her  devotion.  The  fond- 
ness of  Justinian  has  preserved  her  initials  in  the 
capitals  of  the  columns,  the  imperial  eagle  marks 
the  screen  that  hid  her  seat,  and  the  curious  trav- 
eler may  see  her  name  carved  on  the  balustrade 
where  she  sat. 

To  the  ancient  building*  the  Moslems  have  added 
the  minarets  at  the  four  corners  and  the  enormous 
crescent  on  the  dome,  the  gilding  of  which  cost 
fifty  thousand  ducats,  and  the  shining  of  which,  a 
golden  moon  in  the  day,  is  visible  at  the  distance 
of  a  hundred  miles.  The  crescent,  adopted  by  the 
Osmanli  upon  the  conquest  of  Jerusalem,  was  the 
emblem  of  Byzantium  before  the  Christian  era. 
There  is  no  spot  in  Constantinople  more  flooded 
with  historical  associations,  or  more  interesting  to 
the  student  of  the  history  of  the  Eastern  Empire, 
than  the  site  of  St.  Sophia.  Here  arose  the  church 
of  the  same  name  erected  by  Constantino ;  it  was 
twice  burned,  once  by  the  party  of  St.  John  Chry- 
sostom,  and  once  in  a  tumult  of  the  factions  of  the 
Hippodrome.  1  should  like  to  have  seen  some  of 
the  pageants  that  took  place  here.  After  repos- 
ing in  their  graves  for  three  centuries,  the  bodies 
of  St.  Andrew,  St.  Luke,  and  St.  Timothy  were 
transported  hither.  Fifty  years  after  it  was  hon- 
ored by  a  still  more  illustrious  presence ;  the  ashes 
of  the  prophet  Samuel,  deposited  in  a  golden  vase 


HISTORICAL   ASSOCIATIONS  427 

covered  with  a  silken  veil,  left  their  resting-place 
in  Palestine  for  the  banks  of  the  Bosphorus.  The 
highways  from  the  hills  of  Judaea  to  the  gates  of 
Constantinople  were  filled  by  an  uninterrupted 
procession,  who  testified  their  enthusiasm  and  joy, 
and  the  Emperor  Arcadius  himself,  attended  by 
the  most  illustrious  of  the  clergy  and  the  Senate, 
advanced  to  receive  his  illustrious  guest,  and  con- 
ducted the  holy  remains  to  this  magnificent  but 
insecure  place  of  repose.  It  was  here  that  Greg- 
ory Nazianzen  was  by  force  installed  upon  the 
Episcopal  throne  by  Theodosius.  The  city  was 
fanatically  Arian.  Theodosius  proclaimed  the 
Nicene  creed,  and  ordered  the  primate  to  deliver 
the  cathedral  and  all  the  churches  to  the  orthodox, 
who  were  few  in  number,  but  strong  in  the  pres- 
ence of  Gregory.  This  extraordinary  man  had 
set  up  an  orthodox  pulpit  in  a  private  house ;  he 
had  been  mobbed  by  a  motley  crowd  which  issued 
from  the  Cathedral  of  St.  Sophia,  "common  beg- 
gars who  had  forfeited  their  claim  to  pity,  monks 
who  had  the  appearance  of  goats  or  satyrs,  and 
women  more  horrible  than  so  many  Jezebels;  "  he 
had  his  triumph  when  Theodosius  led  him  by  the 
hand  through  the  streets  —  filled  with  a  multitude 
crowding  pavement,  roofs,  and  windows,  and  vent- 
ing their  rage,  grief,  astonishment,  and  despair  — 
into  the  church,  which  was  held  by  soldiers,  though 
the  prelate  confessed  that  the  city  had  the  appear- 
rance  of  a  town  stormed  by  barbarians.  It  was 
here  that  Eutropius,  the  eunuch,  when  his  career 
of  rapacity  exceeded  even  the  toleration  of  Area- 


428  ST.    SOPHIA 

dins,  sought  sanctuary,  and  was  protected  by  John 
Chryso^tom,  archbishop,  who  owed  his  ecclesiasti- 
cal dignity  to  the  late  sexless  favorite.  And  it 
was  up  this  very  nave  that  Mohammed  II.,  the 
conqueror,  spurred  his  horse  through  a  crowd  of 
fugitives,  dismounted  at  the  foot  of  the  altar,  cried, 
"There  is  no  God  but  God,  and  Mohammed  is 
his  prophet  !  "  and  let  loose  his  soldiery  upon  the 
priests,  virgins,  and  promiscuous  multitude  who 
had  sought  shelter  here.  , 

I  should  only  weary  you  with  unintelligible  de- 
tails in  attempting  a  description  of  other  mosques 
which  we  visited.  They  are  all  somewhat  alike, 
though  varying  in  degrees  of  splendor.  There  is 
that  of  Sultan  Ahmed,  on  the  site  of  the  Hippo- 
drome, distinguished  as  the  only  one  in  the  empire 
that  has  six  minarets,  —  the  state  mosque  of  the 
Sultan,  whence  the  Mecca  pilgrimages  proceed  and 
where  the  great  festivals  are  held.  From  a  dis- 
tance it  is  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  and  poeti- 
cally beautiful  objects  in  the  city.  And  there  is 
the  Mosque  of  Suleiman  the  Magnificent,  a  copy 
of  St.  Sophia  and  excelling  it  in  harmonious  gran- 
deur, —  indeed,  it  is  called  the  finest  mosque  in 
the  empire.  Its  forecourt  measures  a  thousand 
paces,  and  the  inclosure  contains,  besides  the 
mosque  and  the  tomb  of  the  founder,  many  foun- 
dations of  charity  and  of  learning,  —  three  schools 
for  the  young,  besides  one  for  the  reading  of  the 
Koran  and  one  of  medicine,  four  academies  for 
the  four  Moslem  sects,  a  hospital,  a  kitchen  for  the 
poor,  a  library,  a  fountain,  a  resting-place  for  trav« 


IMPERIAL    TOMBS  429 

elers,  and  a  house  of  refuge  for  strangers.  From 
it  one  enjoys  a  magnificent  view  of  the  Golden 
Horn,  the  Bosphorus,  and  the  piled-up  city  oppo- 
site. When  we  entered  the  mosque  hundreds  of 
worshipers  were  at  prayer,  bowing  their  turbans 
towards  Mecca  in  silent  unison.  The  throng  soon 
broke  up  into  groups  of  from  ten  to  forty,  which 
seated  themselves  in  circles  on  the  floor  for  the 
reading  of  the  Koran.  The  shoes  were  heaped  in 
the  centre  of  each  circle,  the  chief  reader  squatted 
at  a  low  desk  on  one  side,  and  all  read  together  in 
a  loud  voice,  creating  an  extraordinary  vocal  tu- 
mult. It  was  like  a  Sunday-school  in  fancy  dress. 
Stamboul  is  a  very  interesting  place  to  those 
who  have  a  taste  for  gorgeous  sepulchres,  and  I  do 
not  know  any  such  pleasant  residences  of  the  dead 
as  the  tnrbehs,  or  tombs  of  the  imperial  family. 
Usually  attached  to  the  mosques,  but  sometimes 
standing  apart,  they  are  elegant  edifices,  such  as 
might  be  suitable  for  the  living;  in  their  airy, 
light,  and  stately  chambers  the  occupants  are  de- 
prived of  no  splendor  to  which  they  were  accus- 
tomed in  life.  One  of  the  most  beautiful  of  these 
turbehs,  that  of  Sultan  Mahmood  II.,  I  mistook 
for  a  fountain ;  it  is  a  domed,  circular  building  of 
white  marble,  with  Corinthian  pilasters,  and 
lighted  by  seven  large  windows  with  gilded  grating. 
Within,  in  a  cheerful,  carpeted  apartment,  are 
the  biers  of  the  sultan,  his  valideh  sultana,  and 
five  daughters,  covered  with  cloths  of  velvet,  richly 
embroidered,  upon  which  are  thrown  the  most  su- 
perb India  shawls;  the  principal  sarcophagi  are 


430  THE   HIPPODROME 

surrounded  by  railings  of  mother-of-pearl;  mas- 
sive silver  candlesticks  and  Koran-stands,  upon 
which  are  beautiful  manuscripts  of  the  Koran,  are 
disposed  about  the  room,  and  at  the  head  of  the 
Sultan's  bier  is  a  fez  with  a  plume  and  aigrette  of 
diamonds.  In  the  court  of  Santa  Sophia  you  may 
see  the  beautiful  mausoleum  of  Selim  II.,  who  re- 
poses beside  the  Lady  of  Light ;  and  not  far  from 
it  the  turbeh  containing  the  remains  of  Mohammed 
III.,  surrounded  by  the.biers  of  seventeen  brothers 
whom  he  murdered.  It  is  pleasant  to  see  brothers 
united  and  in  peace  at  last.  I  found  something 
pathetic  in  other  like  apartments  where  families 
were  gathered  together,  sultans  and  sultanas  in 
the  midst  of  little  span -long  biers  of  sons  and 
daughters,  incipient  sultans  and  sultanas,  who 
were  never  permitted  by  state  policy,  if  I  may  be 
allowed  the  expression,  to  hatch.  Strangled  in 
their  golden  cradles,  perhaps,  these  innocents ! 
Worthless  little  bodies,  mocked  by  the  splendor  of 
their  interments.  One  could  not  but  feel  a  little 
respect  for  what  might  have  been  a  "Sublime 
Porte  "  or  a  Light  of  the  Seraglio. 

Tbe  Imperial  Palace,  the  Church  of  Santa  So- 
phia, the  Hippodrome,  —  these  are  the  triangle  of 
Byzantine  history,  the  trinity  of  tyranny,  religion, 
and  faction.  The  Circus  of  Constantinople,  like 
that  on  the  banks  of  the  Tiber,  was  the  arena  for 
the  exhibition  of  games,  races,  spectacles,  and  tri- 
umphs ;  like  that,  it  was  the  arena  of  a  licentious 
democracy,  but  the  most  disorderly  mob  of  Koine 
never  attained  the  power  or  equaled  the  vices  of 


MURDEROUS   FACTIONS  431 

the  murderous  and  incendiary  factions  of  Byzan- 
tium. The  harmless  colors  that  at  first  only  dis- 
tinguished the  ignoble  drivers  in  the  chariot  races 
became  the  badges  of  parties,  which  claimed  the 
protection  and  enjoyed  the  favor  of  emperors  and 
prelates;  and  the  blue  and  the  green  factions  not 
only  more  than  once  involved  the  city  in  confla- 
gration and  blood,  but  carried  discord  and  frenzy 
into  all  the  provinces.  Although  they  respected 
no  human  or  divine  law,  they  affected  religious 
zeal  for  one  or  another  Christian  sect  or  dogma ; 
the  "blues  "  long  espoused  the  orthodox  cause,  and 
enjoyed  the  partiality  of  Justinian.  The  dissolute 
youth  of  Constantinople,  wearing  the  livery  of  the 
factions,  possessed  the  city  at  night,  and  abandoned 
themselves  to  any  deed  of  violence  that  fancy  or 
revenge  suggested;  neither  the  sanctity  of  the 
church,  nor  the  peace  of  the  private  house,  nor 
the  innocence  of  youth,  nor  the  chastity  of  matron 
or  maid,  was  safe  from  these  assassins  and  ravish- 
ers.  It  was  in  one  of  their  seditious  outbreaks 
that  the  palace  and  Santa  Sophia  were  delivered 
to  the  flames. 

The  oblong  ground  of  the  Hippodrome  is  still 
an  open  place,  although  a  portion  of  the  ground  is 
covered  by  the  Mosque  of  Ahmed.  But  the  trav- 
eler will  find  there  few  relics  of  this  historical 
arena;  nothing  of  the  marble  seats  and  galleries 
that  surrounded  it.  The  curious  may  look  at  the 
Egyptian  obelisk  of  syenite,  at  the  crumbling  pyr- 
amid which  was  the  turning  goal  of  the  chariots ; 
and  he  may  find  more  food  for  reflection  in  the 


432  THE    HIPPODROME 

bronze  spiral  column,  formed  by  the  twinings  of 
three  serpents  whose  heads  have  been  knocked 
off.  It  deserves  to  be  housed  and  cared  for. 
There  is  no  doubt  of  its  venerable  antiquity;  it 
was  seen  by  Thucydides  and  Herodotus  in  the 
Temple  of  Delphi,  where  its  three  branching  heads 
formed  a  tripod  upon  which  rested  the  dish  of 
gold  which  the  Greeks  captured  among  the  spoils 
of  the  battle  of  Plataea.  The  column  is  not  more 
than  fifteen  feet  high ;  it  has  stood  here  since  the 
time  of  Constantine. 

This  is  the  most  famous  square  of  Constanti- 
nople, yet  in  its  present  unromantic  aspect  it  is 
difficult  to  reanimate  its  interest.  It  is  said  that 
its  statues  of  marble  and  bronze  once  excelled  the 
living  population  of  the  city.  In  its  arena  em- 
perors, whose  vices  have  alone  saved  their  names 
to  a  conspicuous  contempt,  sought  the  popular  ap- 
plause by  driving  in  the  chariot  races,  or  stripped 
themselves  for  the  sports  with  wild  beasts,  proud 
to  remind  the  spectators  of  the  exploits  of  Calig- 
ula and  Heliogabalus.  Here,  in  the  reign  of  An- 
astasius,  the  "green"  faction,  entering  the  place 
with  concealed  daggers,  interrupted  a  solemn  fes- 
tival and  assassinated  three  thousand  of  the 
"blues."  This  place  was  in  the  first  quarter  of 
this  century  the  exercise  and  parade  ground  of  the 
Janizaries,  until  they  were  destroyed.  Let  us  do 
justice  to  the  Turks.  In  two  memorable  instances 
they  exhibited  a  nerve  which  the  Roman  emperors 
lacked,  who  never  had  either  the  firmness  or  the 
courage  to  extirpate  the  Praetorian  Guards.  The 


ANCIENT   COLUMNS  433 

Janizaries  set  up,  deposed,  murdered  sultans,  as 
the  Guards  did  Emperors ;  and  the  Mamelukes  of 
Egypt  imitated  their  predecessors  at  Rome.  Mah- 
mood  II.  in  Constantinople,  and  Mohammed  Ali 
in  Cairo,  had  the  courage  to  extinguish  these  ene- 
mies of  Turkish  sovereignty. 

In  this  neighborhood  are  several  ancient  monu- 
ments; the  Burnt  Column,  a  blackened  shaft  of 
porphyry ;  the  column  called  Historical ;  and  that  of 
Theodosius,  —  I  shall  not  fatigue  you  with  further 
mention  of  them.  Not  far  from  the  Hippodrome 
we  descended  into  the  reservoir  called  A  Thousand 
and  One  Columns ;  I  suppose  this  number  is  made 
up  by  counting  one  as  three,  for  each  column  con- 
sists of  three  superimposed  shafts.  It  is  only  par- 
tially excavated.  We  found  a  number  of  Jews 
occupying  these  subterranean  colonnades,  engaged 
in  twisting  silk,  the  even  temperature  of  the  cellar 
being  favorable  to  this  work. 

As  if  we  had  come  out  of  a  day  in  another  age, 
we  walked  down  through  the  streets  of  the  artifi- 
cers of  brass  and  ivory  and  leather,  to  the  floating 
bridge,  and  crossed  in.  a  golden  sunset,  in  which 
the  minarets  and  domes  of  the  mosque  of  Mo- 
hammed H.  appeared  like  some  aerial  creation  in 
the  yellow  sky. 


XXVI 

SAUNTERINGS   ABOUT   CONSTANTINOPLE 

URING  the  day  steamers  leave  the 
Galata  bridge  every  half  hour  for  the 
villages  and  palaces  along  the  Bos. 
phorus ;  there  is  a  large  fleet  of  them, 
probably  thirty,  but  they  are  always  crowded,  like 
the  ferry-boats  that  ply  the  waters  of  New  York 
Bay. 

,We  took  our  first  sail  on  the  Bosphorus  one 
afternoon  toward  sunset,  ascending  as  far  as 
Bebek,  where  we  had  been  invited  to  spend  the 
night  by  Dr.  Washburne,  the  President  of  Rob- 
erts College.  I  shall  not  soon  forget  the  anima- 
tion of  the  harbor,  crowded  with  shipping,  amid 
which  the  steamers  and  ca'iques  were  darting  about 
like  shuttles,  the  first  impression  made  by  the  pal- 
aces and  ravishingly  lovely  shores  of  this  winding 
artery  between  two  seas.  Seven  promontories 
from  Asia  and  seven  promontories  from  Europe 
project  into  the  stream,  creating  as  many  corre- 
sponding bays;  but  the  villages  are  more  numer- 
ous than  bays  and  promontories  together,  for  there 
are  over  forty  in  the  fourteen  miles  from  the  Sea 
of  Marmora  to  the  Black  Sea;  on  the  shores  is  an 


ROBERTS    COLLEGE  435 

almost  unbroken  line  of  buildings,  many  of  them 
palaces  of  marble;  the  heights  are  crowned  with 
cottages  and  luxurious  villas,  and  abodes  of  taste 
and  wealth  peep  out  along  the  slopes.  If  you  say 
that  we  seem  to  be  sailing  in  the  street  of  a  city, 
I  can  only  answer  that  it  is  not  so ;  nature  is  still 
supreme  here,  and  the  visible  doweress  of  the 
scene.  These  lovely  hills  rising  on  both  sides, 
these  gracious  curves  are  hers,  as  are  these  groves 
and  gardens  of  fruits  and  flowers,  these  vines  and 
the  abundant  green  that  sometimes  conceals  and 
always  softens  the  work  of  man. 

Before  we  reached  the  Sultan's  palace  at  Beshik- 
tash,  our  steamer  made  a  detour  to  the  east  bank, 
outside  of  the  grim  iron-dads  that  lie  before  the 
imperial  residence.  No  steamers  are  permitted  to 
approach  nearer,  lest  the  smoke  should  soil  the 
sparkling  white  marble  of  the  palace,  or  their 
clamor  and  dangerous  freight  of  men  should  dis- 
turb the  serenity  of  the  harem.  The  palace,  which 
is  a  beautiful  building,  stretches  for  some  distance 
along  the  water,  with  its  gardens  and  conserva- 
tories, and  seems  to  be  a  very  comfortable  home 
for  a  man  who  has  no  more  ready  money  than  the 
Sultan. 

We  landed  at  Bebek  and  climbed  the  steep  hill, 
on  whose  slope  nightingales  were  singing  in  the 
forest,  just  in  time  to  see  the  sunset.  Roberts 
College  occupies  the  most  commanding  situation 
on  the  strait,  and  I  do  not  know  any  view  that 
surpasses  in  varied  beauty  that  to  be  enjoyed  from 
it.  I  shall  make  myself  comprehended  by  many 


436       SAUNTERINGS    ABOUT    CONSTANTINOPLE 

when  I  say  that  it  strongly  reminded  me  of  the 
Hudson  at  West  Point;  if  nature  could  be  sus- 
pected of  copying  herself,  I  should  say  that  she 
had  the  one  in  mind  when  she  made  the  other. 
At  that  point  the  Hudson  resembles  the  Bosphorus, 
but  it  wants  the  palaces,  the  Vale  of  the  Heavenly 
Water  into  which  we  looked  from  this  height,  and 
some  charming  medieval  towers,  walls,  and  castles. 

The  towers  and  walls  belong  to  the  fortress  built 
in  1451  by  Mohammed  II.,  and  are  now  fallen 
into  that  decrepitude  in  which  I  like  best  to  see 
all  fortresses.  But  this  was  interesting  before  it 
was  a  ruin.  It  stands  just  above  the  college,  at 
Koomeli  Hissar,  where  the  Bosphorus  is  narrow- 
est, —  not  more  than  half  a  mile  broad,  —  and 
with  the  opposite  fortress  of  Anatolia  could  per- 
fectly close  the  stream.  Two  years  before  the  cap- 
ture of  the  city,  Mohammed  built  this  fort,  and 
gave  it  the  most  peculiar  form  of  any  fortress  exist- 
ing. His  idea  was  that  the  towers  and  the  circuit 
of  the  walls  should  spell  the  name  of  the  Prophet, 
and  consequently  his  own.  As  we  looked  down 
upon  it,  my  friend  read  for  me  this  singular  piece 
of  caligraphy,  but  I  could  understand  it  no  fur- 
ther than  the  tower  which  stands  for  the  Arabic 
ring  in  the  first  letter.  It  was  at  this  place  that 
Darius  threw  a  bridge  across  the  Bosphorus,  and 
there  is  a  tradition  of  a  stone  seat  which  he  occu- 
pied here  while  his  Asiatics  passed  into  Europe. 

So  far  as  I  know,  there  is  no  other  stream  in 
the  world  upon  which  the  wealth  of  palaces  and 
the  beauty  of  gardens  may  be  so  advantageously 


A   NEW    ERA  437 

displayed.  So  far  as  I  know,  there  is  no  other 
place  where  nature  and  art  have  so  combined  to 
produce  an  enchanting  prospect.  As  the  situation 
and  appearance  of  Constantinople  are  unequaled, 
so  the  Bosphorus  is  unique. 

Whatever  may  be  the  political  changes  of  the 
Turkish  Empire,  I  do  not  believe  that  this  pleas- 
ing picture  will  be  destroyed ;  rather  let  us  expect 
to  see  it  more  lovely  in  the  rapidly  developing  taste 
of  a  new  era  of  letters  and  refinement.  It  was  a 
wise  forethought  that  planted  the  American  Col- 
lege just  here.  It  is  just  where  it  should  be  to 
mould  the  new  order  of  things.  I  saw  among  its 
two  hundred  pupils  scholars  of  all  creeds  and  races, 
who  will  carry  from  here  living  ideas  to  every  part 
of  the  empire,  and  I  learned  to  respect  that  thirst 
for  knowledge  and  ability  to  acquire  it  which  exist 
in  the  neighboring  European  provinces.  If  im- 
patient men  could  wait  the  process  of  education, 
the  growth  of  schools,  and  the  development  of 
capacity  now  already  most  promising,  the  Eastern 
question  might  be  solved  by  the  appearance  on  the 
st'ene,  in  less  than  a  score  of  years,  of  a  stalwart 
and  intelligent  people,  who  would  be  able  not  only 
to  grasp  Constantinople,  but  to  administer  upon 
the  decaying  Turkish  Empire  as  the  Osmanli  ad- 
ministered upon  the  Greek. 

On  Friday  the  great  business  of  everybody  is  to 
see  the  Sultan  go  to  pray ;  and  the  eagerness  with 
which  foreigners  crowd  to  the  spectacle  must  con- 
vince the  Turks  that  we  enjoy  few  religious  priv- 
ileges at  home.  It  is  not  known  beforehand,  even 


438      SAUNTERINGS   ABOUT   CONSTANTINOPLE 

to  the  inmates  of  the  palace,  to  what  mosque  the 
Sultan  will  go,  nor  whether  he  will  make  a  street 
progress  on  horseback,  or  embark  upon  the  water, 
for  the  chosen  place  of  prayer.  Before  twelve 
o'clock  we  took  carriage  and  drove  down  the  hill, 
past  the  parade-ground  and  the  artillery  barracks 
to  the  rear  of  the  palace  of  Beshiktash;  crowds  on 
foot  and  in  carriages  were  streaming  in  that  direc- 
tion ;  regiments  of  troops  were  drifting  down  the 
slopes  and  emptying  into  the  avenue  that  leads  be- 
tween the  palace  and  the  plantation  of  gardens ; 
colors  were  unfurled,  drums  beaten,  trumpets  called 
from  barrack  and  guard-house;  gorgeous  officers 
on  caparisoned  horses,  with  equally  gaudy  attend- 
ants, cantered  to  the  rendezvous ;  and  all  the  air 
was  full  of  the  expectation  of  a  great  event.  At 
the  great  square  of  the  palace  we  waited  amid  an 
intense  throng;  four  or  five  lines  of  carriages 
stretched  for  a  mile  along ;  troops  were  in  march- 
ing rank  along  the  avenue  and  disposed  in  hollow 
square  on  the  place ;  the  palace  gates  were  closed, 
and  everybody  looked  anxiously  toward  the  high 
and  gilded  portal  from  which  it  was  said  the  an- 
nouncement of  the  Sultan's  intention  would  be 
made.  From  time  to  time  our  curiosity  was  fed 
by  the  arrival  of  a  splendid  pasha,  who  dismounted 
and  walked  about ;  and  at  intervals  a  gilded  per- 
sonage emerged  from  the  palace  court  and  raised 
our  expectation  on  tiptoe.  We  send  our  dragoman 
to  interrogate  the  most  awful  dignities,  especially 
some  superb  beings  in  yellow  silk  and  gold,  but 
they  know  nothing  of  the  Sultan's  mind.  At  the 


THE    SULTAN    GOING   TO    PRAY  439 

last  moment  he  might,  on  horseback,  issue  from 
the  gate  with  a  brilliant  throng,  or  he  might  de- 
part in  his  caique  by  the  water  front.  In  either 
case  there  would  be  a  rush  and  a  scramble  to  see 
and  to  accompany  him.  More  regiments  were  ar- 
riving, bands  were  playing,  superb  officers  gallop- 
ing up  and  down ;  carriages,  gilded  with  the  arms 
of  foreign  embassies,  or  filled  with  Turkish  ladies, 
pressed  forward  to  the  great  gate,  which  still  gave 
no  sign.  I  have  never  seen  such  a  religious  excite- 
ment. For  myself,  I  found  some  compensation  in 
the  usual  Oriental  crowd  and  unconscious  pictur- 
esqueness;  swart  Africans  in  garments  of  yellow, 
sellers  of  sherbet  clinking  their  glasses,  venders  of 
faint  sweetmeats  walking  about  with  trays  and 
tripods,  and  the  shifting  kaleidoscope  of  races, 
colors,  and  graceful  attitudes. 

Suddenly,  I  do  not  know  how,  or  from  what 
quarter,  the  feeling  —  for  I  could  not  call  it  in- 
formation —  was  diffused  that  the  successor  of  the 
Prophet  would  pray  at  the  mosque  in  Ortakeui, 
and  that  he  would  go  by  caique;  and  we  all  scam- 
pered up  the  road,  a  mile  or  two,  racing  carriages, 
troops  and  footmen,  in  eager  outset,  in  order  to 
arrive  before  the  pious  man.  The  mosque  stands 
upon  the  Bosphorus,  where  its  broad  marble  steps 
and  pillared  front  and  dome  occurjy  as  conspicuous 
a  position  as  the  Dogana  at  Venice.  We  secured 
a  standing-place  on  the  dock  close  to  the  landing, 
but  outside  the  iron  railing,  and  waited.  A  cordon 
of  troops  in  blue  regimentals  with  red  facings  was 
drawn  around  the  streets  in  the  rear  of  the  mosque, 


440      SAUNTERINGS   ABOUT   CONSTANTINOPLE 

and  two  companies  of  soldiers  in  white  had  stacked 
their  guns  on  the  marble  landing,  and  were  loun- 
ging about  in  front  of  the  building. 

The  scene  on  the  Bosphorus  was  as  gay  as  a 
flower-garden.  The  water  was  covered  with  grace- 
ful caiques  and  painted  barges  and  every  sort  of 
craft,  mean  and  splendid,  that  could  be  propelled 
by  oars  or  sails.  A  dozen  men-of-war  were  decked 
with  flags  from  keel  to  maintop;  on  every  yard, 
and  from  bowsprit  to  stern,  stood  a  line  of  sailors 
sharply  defined  against  the  blue  sky.  At  one 
o'clock  a  cannon  announced  that  the  superior  dev- 
otee had  entered  his  caique,  and  then  from  every 
vessel  of  war  in  the  harbor  salute  answered  salute 
in  thunder  that  awoke  the  echoes  of  two  continents ; 
until  on  all  the  broad  water  lay  a  thick  battle- 
smoke,  through  which  we  could  distinguish  only 
the  tops  of  the  masts,  and  the  dim  hulks  spouting 
fire. 

In  the  midst  of  this  earthquake  of  piety,  there 
was  a  cry,  "He  comes,  he  comes!"  The  soldiers 
grasped  their  arms  and  drew  a  line  each  side  of 
the  landing,  and  the  officials  of  the  mosque  ar- 
ranged themselves  on  the  steps.  Upon  the  water, 
advancing  with  the  speed  of  race-horses,  we  saw 
two  splendid  gilded  caiques,  the  one  containing  the 
Sultan,  the  other  his  attendants.  At  the  moment, 
a  light  carriage  with  two  bay  horses,  unattended, 
dashed  up  to  the  side  door,  and  there  descended 
from  it  and  entered  the  mosque  the  imperial  heir, 
the  son  of  the  late  Sultan  and  the  nephew  of  the 
present,  a  slender,  pale  youth  of  apparently  twen- 


THE   SULTAN   GOING  TO   PRAY 


A   SPLENDID    CAIQUE  441 

ty-five  or  thirty  years.  We  turn  (not  knowing 
how  soon  he  is  to  become  Sultan  Murad  V.)  our 
eyes  to  him  only  for  a  moment,  for  the  b'ultan's 
caique  conies  with  imperious  haste,  with  the  rush 
as  it  were  of  victory,  —  an  hundred  feet  long,  nar- 
row, rising  at  the  stern  like  the  Venetian  Bucen- 
taur,  carved  and  gilded  like  the  golden  chariot  in 
which  Alexander  entered  Babylon,  —  propelled  by 
fifty -two  long  sweeps,  rising  and  falling  in  unison 
with  the  bending  backs  of  twenty-six  black  rowers, 
clad  in  white  and  with  naked  feet.  The  Sultan  is 
throned  in  the  high  stern,  hung  with  silk,  on  silken 
cushions,  under  a  splendid  canopy  on  the  top  of 
which  glisten  his  arms  and  a  blazing  sun.  The 
Sultan,  who  is  clad  in  the  uniform  of  a  general, 
steps  quickly  out,  walks  up  the  steps  over  a  car- 
pet spread  for  his  royal  feet,  —  the  soldiers  salut- 
ing, everybody  with  arms  crossed  bending  the 
body,  —  and  disappears  in  the  mosque.  The  sec- 
ond caique  lands  immediately,  and  the  imperial 
ministers  step  from  it  and  follow  their  master. 

At  the  side  entrance  an  immense  closed  bag- 
gage-wagon, drawn  by  four  horses  and  said  to  con- 
tain the  sacred  wardrobe,  was  then  unlocked  and 
unloaded,  and  out  of  it  came  trunks,  %boxes,  car- 
pet-bags, as  if  the  imperial  visitor  had  come  to 
stay  a  week.  After  a  half  hour  of  prayer  he  came 
out,  his  uniform  concealed  under  his  overcoat,  got 
quickly  into  a  plain  carriage,  drawn  by  four  mag- 
nificent gray  horses,  and  drove  rapidly  away,  at- 
tended by  a  dozen  outriders.  His  heir  followed 
in  the  carriage  in  which  he  came.  We  had  a  good 


442       SAUNTERINGS    ABOUT    CONSTANTINOPLE 

view  of  the  chief  of  Islam.  He  was  a  tall,  stout 
man,  with  a  full  gray  beard,  and  on  the  whole  a 
good  face  and  figure.  All  this  parade  is  weekly 
enacted  over  one  man  going  to  pray.  It  is,  after 
all,  more  simple  than  the  pageantry  that  often 
attends  the  public  devotion  of  the  vicegerent  of 
Christ  in  St.  Peter's. 

Upon  our  return  we  stopped  at  the  tekkeb,  in 
Pera,  to  see  the  performance  of  the  Turning  Dar- 
wishes.  I  do  not  know  that  I  have  anything  to 
add  to  the  many  animated  descriptions  which  have 
been  written  of  it.  It  is  not  far  from  the  Little 
Field  of  the  Dead,  and  all  about  the  building  are' 
tombs  of  the  faithful,  in  which  were  crowds  of 
people  enjoying  that  peculiar  Oriental  pleasure, 
graveyard  festivity.  The  mosque  is  pleasant,  and 
has  a  polished  dancing-floor,  surrounded  by  a  gal- 
lery supported  on  columns.  I  thought  it  would  be 
a  good  place  for  a  "hop."  Everybody  has  seen 
a  picture  of  the  darwishes,  with  closed  eyes,  out- 
stretched arms,  and  long  gowns  inflated  at  the  bot- 
tom like  an  old-fashioned  churn,  turning  smoothly 
round  upon  their  toes,  a  dozen  or  twenty  of  them 
revolving  without  collision.  The  motion  is  cer- 
tainly poetic  and  pleasing,  and  the  plaintive  fluting 
of  the  Arab  nay  adds  I  know  not  what  of  pathos 
to  the  exercise.  I  think  this  dance  might  advanta- 
geously be  substituted  in  Western  salons  for  the 
German,  for  it  is  graceful  and  perfectly  moral. 

Constantinople  is  a  city  of  the  dead  as  much  as 
of  the  living,  and  one  encounters  everywhere  tombs 
and  cemeteries  sentineled  by  the  mournful  dark- 


THE  SWEET  WATERS  OF  EUROPE      443 

green  cypress.  On  our  way  to  take  boat  for  the 
Sweet  Waters  of  Europe  we  descended  through 
the  neglected  Little  Field  of  the  Dead.  It  is  on 
a  steep  acclivity,  and  the  stones  stand  and  lean 
thickly  there,  each  surmounted  by  a  turban  in  fash- 
ion at  the  period  of  the  occupant's  death,  and  with 
inscription  neatly  carved.  That  "every  man  has 
his  date"  strikes  Abd-el- A  tti  as  a  remarkable  fact. 
The  ground  is  netted  by  Imp-hazard  paths,  and  the 
careless  living  tread  the  graves  with  thoughtless 
feet,  as  if  the  rights  of  the  dead  to  their  scanty 
bit  of  soil  were  no  longer  respected.  We  said  to 
the  boatman  that  this  did  not  seem  well.  There 
was  a  weary  touch  of  philosophy  in  his  reply: 
"Ah,  master,  the  world  grows  old!  " 

It  is  the  fashion  for  the  world  to  go  on  Friday 
to  the  Sweet  Waters  of  Europe,  the  inlet  of  the 
Golden  Horn,  flowing  down  between  two  ranges 
of  hills.  This  vale,  which  is  almost  as  celebrated 
in  poetry  as  that  of  the  Heavenly  Water  on  the 
Asiatic  shore,  is  resorted  to  by  thousands,  in  hun- 
dreds of  carriages  from  Pera,  in  thousands  of 
caiques  and  barges.  On  the  water,  the  excursion 
is  a  festival  of  the  people,  of  strangers,  of  adven- 
turers of  both  sexes ;  the  more  fashionable  though 
not  moral  part  of  society,  who  have  equipages  to 
display,  go  by  land.  We  chose  the  water,  and 
selected  a  large  four -oared  caVque,  in  the  bottom 
of  which  we  seated  ourselves,  after  a  dozen  narrow 
escapes  from  upsetting  the  tottlish  craft,  and  rowed 
away,  with  the  grave  Abd-el- Atti  balanced  behind 
and  under  bonds  to  preserve  his  exact  equilibrium. 


444       SAUNTERINGS    ABOUT    CONSTANTINOPLE 

All  the  city  seems  to  be  upon  the  water;  the 
stream  is  alive  with  the  slender,  swift  caiques; 
family  parties,  rollicking  midshipmen  from  some 
foreign  vessel,  solitary  beauties  reclining  in  selfish 
loveliness,  grave  fat  Turks,  in  stupid  enjoyment. 
No  voyage  could  be  gayer  than  this  through  the 
shipping,  with  the  multitudinous  houses  of  the  city 
rising  on  either  hand.  As  we  advance,  the  shore 
is  lined  with  people,  mostly  ladies  in  gay  holiday 
apparel,  squatting  along  the  stream ;  as  on  a  spring 
day  in  Paris,  those  who  cannot  afford  carriages 
line  the  avenues  to  the  Bois  de  Boulogne  to  watch 
the  passing  pageant.  The  stream  grows  more  nar- 
row, at  length  winds  in  graceful  turns,  and  finally 
is  only  a  few  yards  wide,  and  the  banks  are  re- 
tained by  masonry.  The  vale  narrows  also,  and 
the  hills  draw  near.  The  water-way  is  choked 
with  gayly  painted  caiques,  full  of  laughing  beau- 
ties and  reckless  pleasure -seekers,  and  the  reader 
of  Egyptian  history  might  think  himself  in  a  sat- 
urnalia of  the  revel-makers  in  the  ancient  fete  of 
Bubastis  on  the  Nile.  The  women  are  clad  in 
soft  silks,  —  blue,  red,  pink,  yellow,  and  gray,  — 
some  of  them  with  their  faces  tied  up  as  if  they 
were  victims  of  toothache,  others  wearing  the  gauze 
veils,  which  enhance  without  concealing  charms; 
and  the  color  and  beauty  that  nature  has  denied  to 
many  are  imitated  by  paint  and  enamel. 

We  land  and  walk  on.  Singers  and  players  on 
curious  instruments  sit  along  the  bank  and  in 
groups  under  the  trees,  and  fill  the  festive  air  with 
the  plaintive  and  untrained  Oriental  music.  The 


A    BRILLIANT    SCENE  445 

variety  of  costumes  is  infinite;  here  we  meet  all 
that  is  gay  and  fantastic  in  Europe  and  Asia.  The 
navigation  ends  at  the  white  marble  palace  and 
mosque  which  we  now  see  shining  amid  the  trees, 
fresh  with  May  foliage.  Booths  and  tents,  green 
and  white,  are  erected  everywhere,  and  there  are 
many  groups  of  gypsies  and  fortune-tellers.  The 
olive-complexioned,  black-eyed,  long-haired  wo- 
men, who  trade  in  the  secrets  of  the  Orient  and 
the  vices  of  the  Occident,  do  a  thriving  business 
with  those  curious  of  the  future,  or  fascinated  by 
the  mysterious  beauty  of  the  soothsayers.  Besides 
the  bands  of  music,  there  are  solitary  bagpipers 
whose  instrument  is  a  skin,  with  a  pipe  for  a  mouth- 
piece and  another  at  the  opposite  end  having  gradu- 
ated holes  for  fingering ;  and  I  noticed  with  plea- 
sure that  the  fingering  and  the  music  continued 
long  after  the  musician  had  ceased  to  blow  into  the 
inflated  skin.  Nothing  was  wanting  to  the  most 
brilliant  scene ;  ladies  in  bright  groups  on  gay  rugs 
and  mats,  children  weaving  head-dresses  from 
leaves  and  rushes,  crowds  of  carriages,  fine  horses 
and  gallant  horsemen,  sellers  of  refreshments  bal- 
ancing great  trays  on  their  heads,  and  bearing  tri- 
pod stools,  and  all  degrees  of  the  most  cosmopolitan 
capital  enjoying  the  charming  spring  holiday. 

In  the  palace  grounds  dozens  of  peacocks  were 
sunning  themselves,  and  the  Judas-trees  were  in 
full  pink  bloom.  Above  the  palace  the  river  flows 
in  walled  banks,  and  before  it  reaches  it  tumbles 
over  an  artificial  fall  of  rocks,  and  sweeps  round 
the  garden  in  a  graceful  curve.  Beyond  the  pal- 


446       SAUNTERINGS    ABOUT    CONSTANTINOPLE 

ace,  also  on  the  bank  of  the  stream,  is  a  grove  of 
superb  trees  and  a  greensward;  here  a  military 
band  plays,  and  this  is  the  fashionable  meeting- 
place  of  carriages,  where  hundreds  were  circling 
round  and  round  in  the  imitated  etiquette  of  Hyde 
Park. 

We  came  down  at  sunset,  racing  swiftly  among 
the  returning  caiques,  passing  and  passed  by  laugh- 
ing boatsful,  whose  gay  hangings  trailed  in  the 
stream,  as  in  a  pageant  on  the  Grand  Canal  of 
Venice,  and  watching,  with  the  interest  of  the  phi- 
losopher only,  the  light  boat  of  beauty  and  frailty 
pursued  by  the  youthful  caique  of  inexperience 
and  desire.  The  hour  contributed  to  make  the 
scene  one  of  magical  beauty.  To  our  right  lay  the 
dark  cypresses  of  the  vast  cemetery  of  Eyoub  (or 
Ayub)  and  the  shining  mosque  where,  at  their  in- 
auguration, the  Osmanli  Sultans  are  still  girt  with 
the  sword  of  their  founder.  At  this  spot,  in  the 
first  siege  of  Constantinople  by  the  Arabs,  fell, 
amid  thirty  thousand  Moslems,  slain  outside  the 
Golden  Gate,  the  Aboo  Ayub,  or  Job,  one  of  the 
last  companions  of  the  Prophet.  He  was  one  of 
the  immortal  auxiliaries;  he  had  fought  at  Beder 
and  Obud  side  by  side  with  Abubeker,  and  he  had 
the  honor  to  be  one  of  the  first  assailants  of  the 
Christian  capital,  which  Mohammed  had  predicted 
that  his  followers  should  one  day  possess.  The  site 
of  his  grave,  forgotten  for  seven  centuries,  was  re- 
vealed to  the  conqueror  of  the  city  by  a  fortunate 
vision,  and  the  spot  was  commemorated  by  a 
mosque  and  a  gathering  congregation  of  the  dead. 


A    CHASE    OF    PLEASURE  447 

Clouds  had  collected  in  the  west,  and  the  heavy 
smoke  of  innumerable  steamers  lay  dark  upon  the 
Bosphorus.  But  as  we  came  down,  the  sun  broke 
out  and  gave  us  one  of  those  effects  of  which  na- 
ture is  sparing.  On  the  heights  of  Stamboul,  a 
dozen  minarets,  only  half  distinct,  were  touched 
by  the  gold  rays ;  the  windows  of  both  cities,  piled 
above  each  other,  blazed  in  it;  the  smooth  river 
and  the  swift  caiques  were  gilded  by  it ;  and  be- 
hind us,  domes  and  spires,  and  the  tapering  shafts 
of  the  Muezzin,  the  bases  hid  by  the  mist,  rose 
into  the  heaven  of  the  golden  sunset  and  appeared 
like  mansions,  and  most  unsubstantial  ones,  in  the 
sky.  And  ever  the  light  caiques  flew  over  the 
rosy  water  in  a  chase  of  pleasure,  in  a  motion  that 
satisfied  the  utmost  longing  for  repose,  while  the 
enchantment  of  heaven  seemed  to  have  dropped 
upon  the  earth. 

"  The  world  has  lost  its  gloss  for  us, 
Since  we  went  boating  on  the  Bosphorus." 

Constantinople  enjoys  or  suffers  the  changeable 
weather  appropriate  to  its  cosmopolitan  inhabit- 
ants and  situation,  and  we  waited  for  a  day  suit- 
able to  cross  Scutari  and  obtain  the  view  from 
Boolgoorloo.  We  finally  accepted  one  of  alternate 
clouds  and  sunshine.  The  connection  between  the 
European  city  and  its  great  suburb  is  maintained 
by  frequent  ferry-steamers,  and  I  believe  that  no 
other  mile-passage  in  the  world  can  offer  the  trav- 
eler a  scene  more  animated  or  views  so  varied  and 
magnificent.  Near  the  landing  at  Scutari  stands 
a  beacon -tower  ninety  feet  high,  erected  upon  a 


448      SAUNTERINGS   ABOUT   CONSTANTINOPLE 

rock;  it  has  the  name  of  the  Maiden's  Tower,  but 
I  do  not  know  why,  unless  by  courtesy  to  one  of 
the  mistresses  of  Sultan  Mohammed,  who  is  said 
to  have  been  shut  up  in  it.  Scutari,  —  pro- 
nounced with  the  accent  on  the  first  syllable,  a 
corruption  of  the  Turkish  name  Uskudar,  —  the 
site  of  the  old  Greek  and  Persian  Chrysopolis,  is 
a  town  sprawling  over  seven  hills,  has  plenty  of 
mosques,  baths,  and  cemeteries,  —  the  three  Ori- 
ental luxuries,  —  but  little  to  detain  the  traveler, 
already  familiar  with  Eastern  towns  of  the  sort. 
The  spot  has  been  in  all  ages  an  arriving  and 
starting  point  for  Asiatic  couriers,  caravans,  and 
armies ;  here  the  earliest  Greek  sea-robbers  hauled 
up  their  venturous  barks  ;  here  Xenophon  rested 
after  his  campaign  against  Cyrus ;  here  the  Roman 
and  then  the  Byzantine  emperors  had  their  hunt- 
ing-palaces; here  for  a  long  time  the  Persians 
menaced  and  wrung  tribute  from  the  city  they 
could  not  capture. 

We  took  a  carriage  and  ascended  through  the 
city  to  the  mountain  of  Boolgoorloo.  On  the 
slopes  above  the  town  are  orchards  and  vineyards 
and  pretty  villas.  The  last  ten  minutes  of  the 
climb  was  accomplished  on  foot,  and  when  we 
stood  upon  the  summit  the  world  was  at  our  feet. 
I  do  not  know  any  other  view  that  embraces  so 
much  and  such  variety.  The  swelling  top  was 
carpeted  with  grass,  sprinkled  with  spring  flowers, 
and  here  and  there  a  spreading  pine  offered  a  place 
of  shade  and  repose.  Behind  us  continued  range 
on  range  the  hills  of  the  peninsula;  to  the  south 


BOOLGOORLOO  449 

the  eye  explored  Asia  Minor,  the  ancient  Bithynia 
and  Mysia,  until  it  rested  on  the  monstrous  snowy 
summits  of  Olympus,  which  rears  itself  beyond 
Broussa,  the  city  famed  for  its  gauzy  silk,  and  the 
first  capital  of  the  Osman  dynasty.  There  stretches 
the  blue  Sea  of  Marmora,  bearing  lightly  on  the 
surface  the  nine  enchanting  Princes'  Islands,  whose 
equable  climate  and  fertile  soil  have  obtained  for 
them  the  epithet  of  the  Isles  of  the  Blest.  Oppo- 
site, Stainboul  rises  out  of  the  water  on  every  side ; 
in  the  distance  a  city  of  domes  and  pinnacles  and 
glass,  the  dark-green  spires  of  cypress  tempering 
its  brilliant  lustre ;  there  the  Golden  Horn  and  its 
thronged  bridges  and  its  countless  masts  and 
steamers'  funnels;  Galata  and  Pera,  also  lifted  up 
into  nobility,  and  all  their  shabby  details  lost,  and 
the  Bosphorus,  its  hills,  marble  palaces,  mosques, 
and  gardens,  on  either  side.  I  do  not  know  any 
scene  that  approaches  this  in  beauty  except  the 
Bay  of  Naples,  and  the  charm  of  that  is  so  differ- 
ent from  this  that  no  comparison  is  forced  upon 
the  mind.  The  Bay  of  New  York  has  many  of 
the  elements  of  this  charming  prospect,  on  the 
map.  But  Constantinople  and  its  environs  can  be 
seen  from  many  points  in  one  view,  while  one 
would  need  to  ascend  in  a  balloon  to  comprehend 
in  like  manner  the  capital  of  the  Western  world. 
It  is  the  situation  of  Constantinople,  lifted  up  into 
a  conspicuousness  that  permits  no  one  of  its  single 
splendors  to  be  lost  in  the  general  view,  that  makes 
it  in  appearance  the  unrivaled  empress  of  cities. 
In  the  foreground  lay  Scutari,  and  in  a  broad 


450        SAUNTERINGS    ABOUT    CONSTANTINOPLE 

sweep  the  heavy  mass  of  cypress  forest  that  covers 
the  great  cemetery  of  the  Turks,  which  they  are 
said  to  prefer  to  Eyoub,  under  the  prophetic  im- 
pression that  they  will  one  day  be  driven  out  of 
Europe.  The  precaution  seems  idle.  If  in  the 
loss  of  Constantinople  the  Osmanli  Sultans  still 
maintain  the  supremacy  of  Islam,  the  Moslem  cap- 
ital could  not  be  on  these  shores,  and  the  caliphate 
in  its  migrations  might  again  be  established  on  the 
Nile,  on  the  Euphrates,  or  in  the  plains  of  Guta 
on  the  Abana.  The  iron-clads  that  lie  in  the  Bos- 
phorus,  the  long  guns  of  a  dozen  fortresses  that 
command  every  foot  of  the  city  and  shore,  forbid 
that  these  contiguous  coasts  should  fly  hostile  flags. 
We  drove  down  to  and  through  this  famous  cem- 
etery in  one  direction  and  another.  In  its  beauty 
I  was  disappointed.  It  is  a  dense  and  gloomy 
cypress  forest ;  as  a  place  of  sepulture,  without  the 
architectural  pretensions  of  Pere-la-Chaise,  and 
only  less  attractive  than  that.  Its  dark  recesses 
are  crowded  with  gravestones,  slender  at  the  bot- 
tom and  swelling  at  the  top,  painted  in  lively  col- 
ors, —  green,  red,  and  gray,  a  necessary  relief  to 
the  sombre  woods,  —  having  inscriptions  in  gilt 
and  red  letters,  and  leaning  at  all  angles,  as  if 
they  had  fallen  out  in  a  quarrel  overnight.  The 
graves  of  the  men  are  distinguished  by  stones 
crowned  with  turbans,  or  with  tarbooshes  painted 
red, — an  imitation,  in  short,  of  whatever  head- 
dress the  owner  wore  when  alive,  so  that  perhaps 
his  acquaintances  can  recognize  his  tomb  without 
reading  his  name.  Some  of  the  more  ancient  have 


FLORENCE   NIGHTINGALE  451 

the  form  of  a  mould  of  Charlotte  Russe.  I  saw 
more  than  one  set  jauntily  on  one  side,  which  gave 
the  monument  a  rakish  air,  singularly  debonnaire 
for  a  tombstone. 

In  contrast  to  this  vast  assembly  of  the  faithful 
is  the  pretty  English  cemetery,  dedicated  to  the 
fallen  in  the  Crimean  war,  —  a  well-kept  flower- 
garden,  which  lies  close  to  the  Bosphorus  on  a 
point  opposite  the  old  Seraglio.  We  sat  down  on 
the  sea-wall  in  this  quiet  spot,  where  the  sun  falls 
lovingly  and  the  undisturbed  birds  sing,  and  looked 
long  at  the  shifting,  busy  panorama  of  a  world 
that  does  not  disturb  this  repose ;  and  then  walked 
about  the  garden,  noting  the  headstones  of  soldiers, 
—  this  one  killed  at  Alma,  that  at  Inkermann,  an- 
other at  Balaklava,  and  the  tall,  graceless  granite 
monument  to  eight  thousand  nameless  dead ;  name- 
less here,  but  not  in  many  a  home  and  many  a 
heart,  any  more  than  the  undistinguished  thousands 
who  sleep  at  Gettysburg,  or  on  a  hundred  other 
patriot  fields. 

Near  by  is  the  great  hospital  which  Florence 
Nightingale  controlled,  and  in  her  memory  we 
asked  permission  to  enter  its  wards  and  visit  its 
garden.  After  some  delay  this  was  granted,  but 
the  Turkish  official  said  that  the  hospital  was  for 
men,  that  there  was  no  woman  there,  and  as  for 
Miss  Nightingale,  he  had  never  heard  of  her.  But 
we  persevered  and  finally  found  an  officer  who  led 
us  to  the  room  she  occupied,  —  a  large  apartment 
now  filled  with  the  beds  of  the  sick,  and,  like  every 
other  part  of  the  establishment,  neat  and  orderly. 


452       SAUNTERINGS   ABOUT   CONSTANTINOPLE 

But  our  curiosity  to  see  where  the  philanthropist 
had  labored  was  an  enigma  to  the  Turkish  officials 
to  the  last.  They  insisted  at  first  that  we  must 
be  relations  of  Miss  Nightingale,  —  a  supposition 
which  I  saw  that  Abd-el-Atti,  who  always  seeks 
the  advantage  of  distinction,  was  inclined  to  favor. 
But  we  said  no.  Well,  perhaps  it  was  natural 
that  Englishmen  should  indulge  in  the  sentiment 
that  moved  us.  But  we  were  not  Englishmen,  we 
were  Americans,  —  they  gave  it  up  entirely.  The 
superintendent  of  the  hospital,  a  courtly  and  elderly 
bey,  who  had  fought  in  the  Crimean  war,  and 
whom  our  dragoman,  dipping  his  hand  to  the 
ground,  saluted  with  the  most  profound  Egyptian 
obeisance,  insisted  upon  serving  us  coffee  in  the 
garden  by  the  fountain  of  gold-fish,  and  we  spent 
an  hour  of  quiet  there. 

On  Sunday  at  about  the  hour  that  the  good  peo- 
ple in  America  were  beginning  to  think  what  they 
should  wear  to  church,  we  walked  down  to  the  ser- 
vice in  the  English  Memorial  Church,  on  the  brow 
of  the  hill  in  Pera,  a  pointed  Gothic  building  of 
a  rich  and  pleasing  interior.  Only  once  or  twice 
in  many  months  had  we  been  in  a  Christian  church, 
and  it  was  at  least  interesting  to  contrast  its  sim- 
ple forms  with  the  elaborate  Greek  ritual  and  the 
endless  repetitions  of  the  Moslem  prayers.  A 
choir  of  boys  intoned  or  chanted  a  portion  of  the 
service  with  marked  ability,  and  wholly  relieved 
the  audience  of  the  necessity  of  making  responses. 
-The  clergymen  executed  the  reading  so  successfully 
that  we  could  only  now  and  then  catch  a  word. 


THE   ENGLISH   MEMORIAL   CHURCH          453 

The  service,  so  far  as  we  were  concerned,  might  as 
well  have  been  in  Turkish ;  and  yet  it  was  not  al- 
together lost  011  us.  We  could  distinguish  occa- 
sionally the  Lord's  Prayer,  and  the  name  of  Queen 
Victoria,  and  we  caught  some  of  the  Command- 
ments as  they  whisked  past  us.  We  knew  also 
when  we  were  in  the  Litany,  from  the  regular 
cadence  of  the  boys'  responses.  But  as  the  en- 
tertainment seemed  to  be  for  the  benefit  of  the  cler- 
gymen and  boys,  I  did  not  feel  like  intruding  be- 
yond the  office  of  a  spectator,  and  I  soon  found 
myself  reflecting  whether  a  machine  could  not  be 
invented  that  should  produce  the  same  effect  of 
sound,  which  was  all  that  the  congregation  enjoyed. 

Rome  has  been  until  recently  less  tolerant  of 
the  Protestant  faith  than  Constantinople;  and  it 
was  an  inspiration  of  reciprocity  to  build  here  a 
church  in  memory  of  the  Christian  soldiers  who 
fell  in  the  crusade  to  establish  the  Moslem  rule  in 
European  Turkey. 

Of  the  various  views  about  Constantinople  we 
always  pronounced  that  best  which  we  saw  last, 
and  at  the  time  we  said  that  those  from  Seraglio 
Point,  from  Boolgoorloo,  and  from  Roberts  Col- 
lege were  crowned  by  that  from  Giant's  Grave 
Mountain,  a  noble  height  on  the  Asiatic  side  of 
the  Bosphorus  near  the  Black  Sea. 

One  charming  morning,  we  ascended  the  strait 
in  a  steamboat  that  calls  at  the  landings  on  the 
eastern  shore.  The  Bosphorus,  if  you  will  have  it 
in  a  phrase,  is  a  river  of  lapis  lazuli  lined  with 
marble  palaces.  As  we  saw  it  that  morning,  its 


454       SAUNTERINGS    ABOUT    CONSTANTINOPLE 

sloping  gardens,  terraces,  trees,  and  vines  in  the 
tender  bloom  of  spring,  all  the  extravagance  of  the 
Oriental  poets  in  praise  of  it  was  justified,  and  it 
was  easy  to  believe  the  nature -romance  with  which 
the  earliest  adventurers  had  clothed  it.  There,  at 
Beshiktash,  Jason  landed  to  rest  his  weary  sailors 
on  the  voyage  to  Colchis;  and  above  there  at 
Koroo  Chesmeh  stood  a  laurel-tree  which  Medea 
planted  on  the  return  of  the  Argonauts.  Tradi- 
tion has  placed  near  it,  on  the  point,  the  site  of 
a  less  attractive  object,  the  pillar  upon  which 
Simeon  Stylites  spent  forty  years  of  a  life  which 
was  just  forty  years  too  long;  but  I  do  not  know 
by  what  authority,  for  I  believe  that  the  perch  of 
the  Syrian  hermit  was  near  Antioch,  where  his 
noble  position  edified  thousands  of  Christians,  who 
enjoyed  their  piety  in  contemplating  his,  and  took 
their  pleasures  in  the  groves  of  Daphne. 

Our  steamer  was,  at  this  moment,  a  craft  more 
dangerous  to  mankind  than  an  iron -clad ;  it  was 
a  sort  of  floating  harem;  we  sat  upon  the  awning- 
covered  upper  deck;  the  greater  part  of  the  lower 
deck  was  jealously  curtained  off  and  filled  with 
Turkish  ladies.  Among  them  we  recognized  a 
little  flock  of  a  couple  of  dozen,  the  harem  of 
Mustapha  Pasha,  the  uncle  of  the  Khedive  of 
Egypt.  They  left  the  boat  at  his  palace  in  Chen- 
guel  Keuy,  and  we  saw  them,  in  silk  gowns  of 
white,  red,  blue,  and  yellow,  streaming  across  the 
flower-garden  into  the  marble  portal,  —  a  pretty 
picture.  The  pasha  was  transferring  his  house- 
hold to  the  country  for  the  summer,  and  we  im- 


A    FLOATING    HAREM  455 

agined  that  the  imprisoned  troop  entered  these 
blooming  May  gardens  with  the  elation  of  freedom, 
which  might,  however,  be  more  perfect  if  eunuchs 
did  not  watch  every  gate  and  foot  of  the  garden 
wall.  I  suppose  that  few  of  them,  however,  would 
be  willing  to  exchange  their  lives  of  idle  luxury 
for  the  misery  and  chance  of  their  former  condi- 
tion, and  it  is  said  that  the  maids  of  the  so-called 
Christian  Georgia  hear  with  envy  of  the  good  for- 
tune of  their  sisters,  who  have  brought  good  prices 
in  the  Turkish  capital. 

When  the  harem  disappeared,  we  found  some 
consolation  in  a  tall  Croat,  who  strutted  up  and 
down  the  deck  in  front  of  us,  that  we  might 
sicken  with  envy  of  his  splendid  costume.  He 
wore  tight  trousers  of  blue  cloth,  baggy  in  the 
rear  but  fitting  the  legs  like  a  glove,  and  terminat- 
ing over  the  shoes  in  a  quilled  inverted  funnel;  a 
brilliant  scarf  of  Syrian  silk  in  loose  folds  about 
his  loins;  a  vest  stiff  with  gold  embroidery;  a 
scarlet  jacket  decked  with  gold -lace,  and  on  his 
head  a  red  fez.  This  is  the  costly  dress  of  a 
Croatian  gardener,  who  displays  all  his  wealth  to 
make  a  holiday  spectacle  of  himself. 

We  sailed  close  to  the  village  of  Kandili  and  the 
promontory  under  which  and  upon  which  it  lies, 
a  site  which  exhausts  the  capacity  of  the  loveliness 
of  nature  and  the  skill  of  art.  From  the  villas  on 
its  height  one  commands,  by  a  shifted  glance,  the 
Euxine  and  the  Marmora,  and  whatever  is  most 
lovely  in  the  prospect  of  two  continents ;  the  purity 
of  the  air  is  said  to  equal  the  charm  of  the  view. 


456      SAUNTERINGS   ABOUT   CONSTANTINOPLE 

Above  this  promontory  opens  the  valley  down 
which  flows  the  river  Geuksoo  (sky-water),  and  at 
the  north  of  it  stands  a  white  marble  kiosk  of  the 
Sultan,  the  most  beautiful  architectural  creation 
on  the  strait.  Near  it,  shaded  by  great  trees,  is  a 
handsome  fountain;  beyond  the  green  turf  in  the 
tree-decked  vale  which  pierces  the  hill  were  groups 
of  holiday-makers  in  gay  attire.  I  do  not  know 
if  this  Valley  of  the  Heavenly  Water  is  the  love- 
liest in  the  East,  but  it  is  said  that  its  charms  of 
meadow,  shade,  sweet  water,  and  scented  flowers 
are  a  substantial  foretaste  of  the  paradise  of  the 
true  believer.  But  it  is  in  vain  to  catalogue  the 
charming  villages,  the  fresh  beauties  of  nature  and 
art  to  which  each  revolution  of  the  paddle-wheel 
carried  us.  We  thought  we  should  be  content 
with  a  summer  residence  of  the  Khedive,  on  the 
European  side  below  the  lovely  bay  of  Terapea, 
with  its  vast  hillside  of  gardens  and  orchards  and 
the  long  line  of  palaces  on  the  water.  Fanned  by 
the  invigorating  breezes  from  the  Black  Sea,  its 
summer  climate  must  be  perfect. 

We  landed  at  Beicos,  and,  in  default  of  any 
conveyance,  walked  up  through  the  straggling  vil- 
lage, along  the  shore,  to  a  verdant,  shady  meadow, 
sweet  with  clover  and  wild-flowers.  This  is  in  the 
valley  of  Him-Kiar  Iskelesi,  a  favorite  residence 
of  the  Sultans ;  here  on  a  projecting  rocky  point  is 
a  reddish  palace,  built  and  given  to  the  Sultan  by 
the  Khedive.  The  meadow  in  which  we  were  is 
behind  a  palace  of  old  Mohammed  Ali,  and  it  is 
now  used  as  a  pasture  for  the  Sultan's  horses,  doz- 


A  TURKISH  ARABA  457 

ens  of  which  were  tethered  and  feeding  in  the  lush 
grass  and  clover.  The  tents  of  their  attendants 
were  pitched  on  the  plain,  and  groups  of  Turkish 
ladies  were  picnicking  under  the  large  sycamores. 
It  was  a  charming  rural  scene.  I  made  the  silent 
acquaintance  of  an  old  man,  in  a  white  turban  and 
flowing  robes,  who  sat  in  the  grass  knitting  and 
watching  his  one  white  lamb  feed;  probably  knit- 
ting the  fleece  of  his  lamb  of  the  year  before. 

We  were  in  search  of  an  araba  and  team  to  take 
us  up  the  mountain;  one  stood  in  the  meadow 
which  we  could  hire,  but  oxen  were  wanting,  and 
we  dispatched  a  Greek  boy  in  search  of  the  ani- 
mals. The  Turkish  ladies  of  fashion  delight  in 
the  araba  when  they  ride  into  the  country,  greatly 
preferring  it  to  the  horse  or  donkey,  or  to  any 
other  carriage.  It  is  a  long  cart  of  four  wheels, 
without  springs,  but  it  is  as  stately  in  appearance 
as  the  band-wagon  of  a  circus ;  its  sloping  side- 
boards and  even  the  platform  in  front  are  elabo- 
rately carved  and  gilded.  While  we  waited  the 
motions  of  the  boy,  who  joined  to  himself  two 
others  even  more  prone  to  go  astray  than  himself, 
an  officer  of  the  royal  stables  invited  us  to  take 
seats  under  the  shade  of  his  tent,  and  served  us 
with  coffee.  After  an  hour  the  boy  returned  with 
two  lean  steers.  The  rude,  hooped  top  of  the 
araba  was  spread  with  a  purple  cloth,  a  thick  bed- 
quilt  covered  the  bottom,  and  by  the  aid  of  a  lad- 
der we  climbed  into  the  ark  and  sat  or  lay  as  we 
could  best  stow  ourselves.  A  boy  led  the  steers 
by  a  rope,  another  walked  at  the  side  gently  goad- 


458       SAUNTERINGS    ABOUT    CONSTANTINOPLE 

ing  them  with  a  stick,  and  we  rumbled  along  slowly 
through  the  brilliant  meadows.  It  became  evident 
after  a  time  that  we  were  not  ascending  the  moun- 
tain, but  going  into  the  heart  of  the  country;  the 
cart  was  stopped  and  the  wild  driver  was  inter- 
rogated. I  never  saw  a  human  being  so  totally 
devoid  of  a  conscience.  We  had  hired  him  to 
take  us  up  to  Giant's  Grave  Mountain.  He  was 
deliberately  cheating  us  out  of  it.  At  first  he  in- 
sisted that  he  was  going  in  the  right  direction,  but 
upon  the  application  of  the  dragoman's  fingers  to 
his  ear,  he  pleaded  that  the  mountain  road  was 
bad  and  that  it  was  just  as  well  for  us  to  visit  the 
Sultan's  farm  up  the  valley.  We  had  come  seven 
thousand  miles  to  see  the  view  from  the  mountain, 
but  this  boy  had  not  the  least  scruple  in  depriving 
us  of  it.  We  turned  about  and  entered  a  charm- 
ing glen,  thoroughly  New  England  in  its  character, 
set  with  small  trees  and  shrubs  and  carpeted  with 
a  turf  of  short  sweet  grass.  One  needs  to  be  some 
months  in  the  Orient  to  appreciate  the  delight  ex- 
perienced by  the  sight  of  genuine  turf. 

As  we  ascended,  the  road,  gullied  by  the  spring 
torrents,  at  last  became  impassable  for  wheels,  and 
we  were  obliged  to  abandon  the  araba  and  perform 
the  last  half  mile  of  the  journey  on  foot.  The 
sightly  summit  of  the  mountain  is  nearly  six  hun- 
dred feet  above  the  water.  There,  in  a  lovely 
grove,  we  found  a  coffee-house  and  a  mosque  and 
the  Giant's  Grave,  which  the  Moslems  call  the 
grave  of  Joshua.  It  is  a  flower-planted  inclosure, 
seventy  feet  long  and  seven  wide,  ample  for  any 


GIANT'S  GRAVE  MOUNTAIN  459 

hero;  the  railing  about  it  is  tagged  with  bits  of 
cloth  which  pious  devotees  have  tied  there  in  the 
expectation  that  their  diseases,  perhaps  their  sins, 
will  vanish  with  the  airing  of  these  shreds.  From 
the  minaret  is  a  wonderful  view,  —  the  entire  length 
of  the  Bosphorus,  with  all  its  windings  and  lovely 
bays  enlivened  with  white  sails,  ships  at  anchor, 
and  darting  steamers,  rich  in  villages,  ancient  cas- 
tles, and  forts;  a  great  portion  of  Asia  Minor, 
with  the  snow  peaks  of  Olympus ;  on  the  south, 
the  Islands  of  the  Blest  and  the  Sea  of  Marmora ; 
on  the  north,  the  Cyanean  rocks  and  the  wide 
sweep  of  the  Euxine,  blue  as  heaven  and  dotted 
with  a  hundred  white  sails,  overlooked  by  the  ruin 
of  a  Genoese  castle,  at  the  entrance  of  the  Bos- 
phorus, built  on  the  site  of  a  temple  of  Jupiter, 
and  the  spot  where  the  Argonauts  halted  before 
they  ventured  among  the  Symplegades;  and  im- 
mediately below,  Terapea  and  the  deep  bay  of 
Buyukdereh,  the  summer  resort  of  the  foreign  res- 
idents of  Constantinople,  a  paradise  of  palaces 
and  gardens,  of  vales  and  stately  plane-trees,  and 
the  entrance  to  the  interior  village  of  Belgrade, 
with  its  sacred  forest  unprofaned  as  yet  by  the 
axe. 

The  Cyanean  rocks  which  Jason  and  his  mari- 
ners regarded  as  floating  islands,  or  sentient  mon- 
sters, vanishing  and  reappearing,  are  harmlessly 
anchored  now,  and  do  not  appear  at  all  formidable, 
though  they  disappear  now  as  of  old  when  the 
fierce  Euxine  rolls  in  its  storm  waves.  For  a  long 
time  and  with  insatiable  curiosity  we  followed  with 


460       SAUNTERINGS    ABOUT   CONSTANTINOPLE 

the  eye  the  line  of  the  coast  of  the  Pontus  Euxinus, 
once  as  thickly  set  with  towns  as  the  Riviera  of 
Italy,  —  cities  of  Ionian,  Dorian,  and  Athenian 
colonies,  who  followed  the  Phosnicians  and  perhaps 
the  Egyptians,  —  in  the  vain  hope  of  extending 
our  vision  to  Trebizond,  to  the  sea  fortress  of 
Petra,  renowned  for  its  defense  by  the  soldiers  of 
Chosroes  against  the  arms  of  Justinian,  and,  fur- 
ther, to  the  banks  of  the  Phasis,  to  Colchis,  whose 
fabulous  wealth  tempted  Jason  and  his  sea-robbers. 
The  waters  of  this  land  were  so  impregnated  with 
particles  of  gold  that  fleeces  of  sheep  were  used  to 
strain  out  the  yellow  metal.  Its  palaces  shone 
with  gold  and  silver,  and  you  might  expect  in  its 
gardens  the  fruit  of  the  Hesperides.  In  the  vales 
of  the  Caucasus,  we  are  taught,  our  race  has  at- 
tained its  most  perfect  form ;  in  other  days  its  men 
were  as  renowned  for  strength  and  valor  as  its 
women  were  for  beauty,  —  the  one  could  not  be 
permanently  subdued,  the  others  conquered,  even 
in  their  slavery.  Early  converts  to  the  Christian 
faith,  they  never  adopted  its  morals  nor  compre- 
hended its  metaphysics ;  and  perhaps  a  more  dis- 
solute and  venal  society  does  not  exist  than  that 
whose  business  for  centuries  has  been  the  raising 
of  maids  for  the  Turkish  harems.  And  the  miser- 
able, though  willing,  victims  are  said  to  possess 
not  even  beauty,  until  after  a  training  in  luxury 
by  the  slave-dealers. 

We  made  our  way,  not  without  difficulty,  down 
the  rough,  bush-grown  hillside,  invaded  a  new 
Turkish  fortification,  and  at  length  found  a  place 


A    PERILOUS    VOYAGE  461 

where  we  could  descend  the  precipitous  bank  and 
summon  a  boat  to  ferry  us  across  to  Buyukdereh. 
This  was  not  easy  to  obtain ;  but  finally  an  aged 
Greek  boatman  appeared  with  a  caique  as  aged 
and  decayed  as  himself.  The  chances  seemed  to 
be  that  it  could  make  the  voyage,  and  we  all  packed 
ourselves  into  it,  sitting  on  the  bottom  and  filling 
it  completely.  There  was  little  margin  of  boat 
above  the  water,  and  any  sudden  motion  would 
have  reduced  that  to  nothing.  We  looked  wise 
and  sat  still,  while  the  old  Greek  pulled  feebly 
and  praised  the  excellence  of  his  craft.  On  the 
opposite  slope  our  attention  was  called  to  a  pretty 
cottage,  and  a  Constantinople  lady,  who  was  of 
the  party,  began  to  tell  us  the  story  of  its  occu- 
pant. So  dramatic  and  exciting  did  it  become 
that  we  forgot  entirely  the  peril  of  our  frail  and 
overloaded  boat.  The  story  finished  as  we  drew 
up  to  the  landing,  which  we  instantly  compre- 
hended we  had  not  reached  a, moment  too  soon. 
For  when  we  arose  our  clothes  were  soaked ;  we 
were  sitting  in  water,  which  was  rapidly  filling  the 
boat,  and  would  have  swamped  it  in  five  minutes. 
The  landing-place  of  Buyukdereh,  the  bay,  the 
hills  and  villas,  reminded  us  of  Lake  Como,  and 
the  quay  and  streets  were  rather  Italian  than  Ori- 
ental. The  most  soaked  of  the  voyagers  stood 
outside  the  railing  of  the  pretty  garden  of  the  cafe 
to  dry  in  the  sun,  while  the  others  sat  inside  un- 
der the  vines,  and  passed  out  to  the  unfortunates, 
through  the  iron  bars,  tiny  cups  of  coffee,  and  fed 
them  with  rahat-al-lacoont  and  other  delicious 


462   SAUNTERINGS  ABOUT  CONSTANTINOPLE 

sweetmeats,  until  the  arrival  of  the  steamer.  The 
ride  down  was  lovely ;  the  sun  made  the  barracks 
and  palaces  on  the  east  shore  a  blaze  of  diamonds ; 
and  the  minarets  seen  through  the  steamer's 
smoke,  which,  transfused  with  the  rosy  light,  over- 
hung the  city,  had  a  phantasmagorical  aspect. 

Constantinople  shares  with  many  other  cities  the 
reputation  of  being  the  most  dissolute  in  the  world. 
The  traveler  is  not  required  to  decide  the  rival 
claims  of  this  sort  of  preeminence,  which  are 
eagerly  put  forward ;  he  may  better,  in  each  city, 
acquiesce  in  the  complaisant  assumption  of  the 
inhabitants.  But  when  he  is  required  to  see  in 
the  moral  state  of  the  Eastern  capital  signs  of  its 
speedy  decay,  and  the  near  extinction  of  the  Oth- 
man  rule,  he  takes  a  leaf  out  of  history  and  reflects. 
It  is  true,  no  doubt,  that  the  Turks  are  enfeebled 
by  luxury  and  sensuality,  and  have,  to  a  great  ex- 
tent, lost  those  virile  qualities  which  gave  to  their 
ancestors  the  domiiiion  of  so  many  kingdoms  in 
Asia,  Africa,  and  Europe;  in  short,  that  the  race 
is  sinking  into  an  incapacity  to  propagate  itself 
in  the  world.  If  one  believes  what  he  hears,  the 
morals  of  society  could  not  be  worse.  The  women, 
so  many  of  whom  have  been  bought  in  the  market, 
or  are  daughters  of  slaves,  are  educated  only  for 
pleasure ;  and  a  great  proportion  of  the  male  popu- 
lation are  adventurers  from  all  lands,  with  few 
domestic  ties.  The  very  relaxation  of  the  surveil- 
lance of  the  harem  (the  necessary  prelude  to  the 
emancipation  of  woman)  opens  the  door  to  oppor- 
tunity, and  gives  freer  play  to  feminine  intrigue. 


MORAL    DECAY  463 

One  hears,  indeed,  that  even  the  inmates  of  the 
royal  harem  find  means  of  clandestine  intercourse 
with  the  foreigners  of  Pera.  The  history  of  the 
Northern  and  Western  occupation  of  the  East  lias 
been,  for  fifteen  centuries,  only  a  repetition  of 
yielding  to  the  seductive  influences  of  a  luxurious 
climate  and  to  soft  and  pleasing  invitation. 

But,  heighten  as  we  may  the  true  and  immoral 
picture  of  social  life  in  Constantinople,  I  doubt  if 
it  is  so  loose  and  unrestrained  as  it  was  for  centu- 
ries under  the  Greek  Emperors;  I  doubt  if  the 
imbecility,  the  luxurious  effeminacy  of  the  Turks, 
has  sunk  to  the  level  of  the  Byzantine  Empire; 
and  when  we  are  asked  to  expect  in  the  decay  of 
to-day  a  speedy  dissolution,  we  remember  that  for 
a  period  of  over  a  thousand  years,  from  the  parti- 
tion of  the  Roman  Empire  between  the  two  sons 
of  Theodosius  to  the  capture  of  Constantinople  by 
Mohammed  II.,  the  empire  subsisted  in  a  state  of 
premature  and  perpetual  decay.  These  Oriental 
dynasties  are  a  long  time  in  dying,  and  we  cannot 
measure  their  decrepitude  by  the  standards  of  Oc- 
cidental morality. 

The  trade  and  the  commerce  of  the  city  are 
largely  in  the  hands  of  foreigners ;  but  it  has  nearly 
always  been  so,  since  the  days  of  the  merchants 
and  manufacturers  of  Pisa,  Genoa,  and  Venice. 
We  might  draw  an  inference  of  Turkish  insecurity 
from  the  implacable  hatred  of  the  so-called  Greek 
subjects,  if  the  latter  were  not  in  the  discord  of  a 
thousand  years  of  anarchy  and  servitude.  The 
history  of  the  islands  of  the  Eastern  Mediterra- 


464       SAUNTERINGS    ABOUT   CONSTANTINOPLE 

nean  has  been  a  succession  of  Turkish  avarice  and 
rapacity,  horrible  Greek  revenge  and  Turkish 
wholesale  devastation  and  massacre,  repeated  over 
and  over  again ;  but  there  appears  as  yet  no  power 
able  either  to  expel  the  Turks  or  to  unite  the 
Greeks.  That  the  leaven  of  change  is  working  in 
the  Levant  is  evident  to  the  most  superficial  obser- 
vation, and- one  sees  everywhere  the  introduction 
of  Western  civilization,  of  business  habits,  and, 
above  all,  of  schools.  However  indifferent  the 
Osmanlis  are  to  education,  they  are  not  insensible 
to  European  opinion;  and  in  reckoning  up  their 
bad  qualities,  we  ought  not  to  forget  that  they 
have  set  some  portions  of  Christendom  a  lesson  of 
religious  toleration,  — both  in  Constantinople  and 
in  Jerusalem  the  Christians  were  allowed  a  free- 
dom of  worship  in  their  own  churches  which  was 
not  permitted  to  Protestants  within  the  sacred 
walls  of  Pontifical  Rome. 

One  who  would  paint  the  manners  or  the  morals 
of  Constantinople  might  adorn  his  theme  with 
many  anecdotes,  characteristic  of  a  condition  of 
society  which  is  foreign  to  our  experience.  I  se- 
lect one  which  has  the  merit  of  being  literally  true. 
You  who  believe  that  modern  romance  exists  only 
in  tales  of  fiction,  listen  to  the  story  of  a  beauty 
of  Constantinople,  the  vicissitudes  of  whose  life 
equal  in  variety  if  not  in  importance  those  of  The- 
odora and  Athenais.  For  obvious  reasons,  I  shall 
mention  no  names. 

There  lives  now  on  the  banks  of  the  Bosphorus 
an  English  physician,  who,  at  the  entreaty  of 


A   ROMANTIC    STORY  465 

Lord  Byron,  went  to  Greece  in  1824  as  a  volunteer 
surgeon  in  the  war  of  independence;  he  arrived 
only  in  time  to  see  the  poet  expire  at  Missolonghi. 
In  the  course  of  the  war,  he  was  taken  prisoner 
by  the  Egyptian  troops,  who  in  their  great  need 
of  surgeons  kept  him  actively  employed  in  his  pro- 
fession. He  did  not  regain  his  freedom  until  after 
the  war,  and  then  only  on  condition  that  he  should 
reside  in  Constantinople  as  one  of  the  physicians 
of  the  Sultan,  Mohammed  II. 

We  may  suppose  that  the  Oriental  life  was  not 
unpleasant,  nor  the  position  irksome  to  him,  for 
he  soon  so  far  yielded  to  the  temptations  of  the 
capital  as  to  fall  in  love  with  a  very  pretty  face 
which  he  saw  daily  in  a  bay-window  of  the  street  he 
traversed  on  the  way  to  the  Seraglio.  Acquaint- 
ance, which  sometimes  precedes  love,  in  this  case 
followed  it;  the  doctor  declared  his  passion  and 
was  accepted  by  the  willing  maid.  But  an  Orien- 
tal bay-window  is  the  opportunity  of  the  world, 
and  the  doctor,  becoming  convinced  that  his  affi- 
anced was  a  desperate  flirt,  and  yielding  to  the 
entreaties  of  his  friends,  broke  off  the  engagement 
and  left  her  free,  in  her  eyrie,  to  continue  her  ob- 
servations upon  mankind.  This,  however,  did  not 
suit  the  plans  of  the  lovely  and  fickle  girl.  One 
morning,  shortly  after,  he  was  summoned  to  see 
two  Turkish  ladies  who  awaited  him  in  his  office ; 
when  he  appeared,  the  young  girl  (for  it  was  she) 
and  her  mother  threw  aside  their  disguise,  and  de- 
clared that  they  would  not  leave  the  house  until 
the  doctor  married  the  daughter,  for  the  rupture 


466       SAUNTERINGS    ABOUT    CONSTANTINOPLE 

of  the  engagement  had  rendered  it  impossible  to 
procure  any  other  husband.  Whether  her  own 
beauty  or  the  terrible  aspect  of  the  mother  pre- 
vailed, I  do  not  know,  but  the  English  chaplain 
was  sent  for ;  he  refused  to  perform  the  ceremony, 
and  a  Greek  priest  was  found  who  married  them. 

This  marriage,  which  took  the  appearance  of 
duress,  might  have  been  happy  if  the  compelling 
party  to  it  had  left  her  fondness  of  adventure  and 
variety  at  the  wedding  threshold;  but  her  con- 
stancy was  only  assumed,  like  the  Turkish  veil,  for 
an  occasion;  lovers  were  not  wanting,  and  after 
the  birth  of  three  children,  two  sons  and  a  daugh- 
ter, she  deserted  her  husband  and  went  to  live  with 
a  young  Turk,  who  has  since  held  high  office  in 
the  government  of  the  Sultan.  It  was  in  her  char- 
acter of  Madame  Mehemet  Pasha  that  she  wrote 
(or  one  of  her  sons  wrote  for  her)  a  book  well 
known  in  the  West,  entitled  "Thirty  Years  in  a 
Harem."  But  her  intriguing  spirit  was  not  ex- 
tinct even  in  a  Turkish  harem ;  she  attempted  to 
palm  off  upon  the  pasha,  as  her  own,  a  child  that 
she  had  bought;  her  device  was  detected  by  one 
of  the  palace  eunuchs,  and  at  the  same  time  her 
amour  with  a  Greek  of  the  city  came  to  light. 
The  eunuch  incurred  her  displeasure  for  his  offi- 
ciousness,  and  she  had  him  strangled  and  thrown 
into  the  Bosphorus.  Some  say  that  the  resolute 
woman  even  assisted  with  her  own  hands.  For 
these  breaches  of  decorum,  however,  she  paid  dear ; 
the  pasha  banished  her  to  Kutayah,  with  orders 
to  the  guard  who  attended  her  to  poison  her  on  the 


A    BEAUTIFUL    ADVENTURESS  467 

way;  but  she  so  won  upon  the  affection  of  the 
officer  that  he  let  her  escape  at  Broussa.  There 
her  beauty,  if  not  her  piety,  recommended  her  to 
an  Imam  of  one  of  the  mosques,  and  she  married 
him  and  seems  for  a  time  to  have  led  a  quiet 
life;  at  any  rate,  nothing  further  was  heard  of 
her  until  just  before  the  famous  cholera  season, 
when  news  came  of  the  death  of  her  husband,  the 
Moslem  priest,  and  that  she  was  living  in  extreme 
poverty,  all  her  beauty  gone  forever,  and  conse- 
quently her  ability  to  procure  another  husband. 

The  pasha,  Mehemet,  lived  in  a  beautiful  pal- 
ace on  the  eastern  shore  of  the  Bosphorus,  near 
Kandili.  During  the  great  cholera  epidemic  of 
1865,  the  pasha  was  taken  ill.  One  day  there  ap- 
peared at  the  gate  an  unknown  woman,  who  said 
that  she  had  come  to  cure  the  pasha;  no  one  knew 
her,  but  she  spoke  with  authority,  and  was  admit- 
ted. It  was  our  adventuress.  She  nursed  the 
pasha  with  the  most  tender  care  and  watchful 
skill,  so  that  he  recovered;  and,  in  gratitude  for 
the  preservation  of  his  life,  he  permitted  her  and 
her  daughter  to  remain  in  the  palace.  For  some 
time  they  were  contented  with  the  luxury  of  such 
a  home,  but  one  day  —  it  was  the  evening  of 
Wednesday  —  neither  mother  nor  daughter  was  to 
be  found ;  and  upon  examination  it  was  discovered 
that  a  large  collection  of  precious  stones  and  some 
ready  money  had  disappeared  with  them.  They 
had  departed  on  the  French  steamer,  in  order  to 
transfer  their  talents  to  the  fields  of  Europe.  The 
fate  of  the  daughter  I  do  not  know ;  for  some  time 


468       SAUNTERINGS    ABOUT    CONSTANTINOPLE 

she  and  her  mother  were  conspicuous  in  the  dissi- 
pation of  Paris  life ;  subsequently  the  mother  lived 
with  a  son  in  London,  and,  since  I  heard  her  story 
in  Constantinople,  she  has  died  in  London  in  mis- 
ery and  want. 

The  further  history  of  the  doctor  and  his  fam- 
ily may  detain  our  curiosity  for  a  moment.  When 
his  wife  left  him  for  the  arms  of  the  pasha,  he  ex- 
perienced so  much  difficulty  in  finding  any  one  in 
Constantinople  to  take  care  of  his  children  that  he 
determined  to  send  them  to  Scotland  to  be  edu- 
cated, and  intrusted  them,  for  that  purpose,  to  a 
friend  who  was  returning  to  England.  They  went 
by  way  of  Rome.  It  happened  that  the  mother 
and  sister  of  the  doctor  had  some  time  before  that 
come  to  Rome,  for  the  sake  of  health,  and  had 
there  warmly  embraced  the  Roman  Catholic  faith. 
Of  course  the  three  children  were  .taken  to  see  their 
grandmother  and  aunt,  and  the  latter,  concerned 
for  their  eternal  welfare,  diverted  them  from  their 
journey,  and  immured  the  boys  in  a  monastery  and 
the  girl  in  a  convent.  The  father,  when  he  heard 
of  this  abduction,  expressed  indignation,  but,  hav- 
ing at  that  time  only  such  religious  faith  as  may 
be  floating  in  the  Oriental  air  and  common  to  all, 
he  made  no  vigorous  effort  to  recover  his  children. 
Indeed,  he  consoled  himself,  in  the  fashion  of  the 
country,  by  marrying  again;  this  time  a  Greek 
lady,  who  died,  leaving  two  boys.  The  doctor 
was  successful  in  transporting  the  offspring  of  his 
second  marriage  to  Scotland,  where  they  were  ed- 
ucated ;  and  they  returned  to  do  him  honor,  —  one 


A   TURKISH    LADY 


THE   GRASP   OF    ROME  469 

of  them  as  the  eloquent  and  devoted  pastor  of  a 
Protestant  church  in  Pera,  and  the  other  as  a  phy- 
sician in  the  employment  of  the  government. 

After  the  death  of  his  second  wife,  the  doctor 
—  I  can  but  tell  the  story  as  I  heard  it  —  became 
a  changed  man,  and  —  married  again ;  this  time  a 
Swiss  lady,  of  lovely  Christian  character.  In  his 
changed  condition,  he  began  to  feel  anxious  to  re- 
cover his  children  from  the  grasp  of  Rome.  He 
wrote  for  information,  but  his  sister  refused  to  tell 
where  they  were,  and  his  search  could  discover  no 
trace  of  them.  At  length  the  father  obtained 
leave  of  absence  from  the  Seraglio,  and  armed  with 
an  autograph  letter  from  Abdul  Aziz  to  Pius  IX. 
he  went  to  Rome.  The  Pope  gave  him  an  order 
for  the  restoration  of  his  children.  He  drove  first 
to  the  convent  to  see  his  daughter.  In  place  of 
the  little  girl  whom  he  had  parted  with  years  ago, 
he  found  a  young  lady  of  extraordinary  beauty, 
and  a  devoted  Romanist.  At  first  she  refused  to 
go  with  him,  and  it  was  only  upon  his  promise  to 
allow  her  perfect  liberty  of  conscience,  and  never 
to  interfere  with  any  of  the  observances  of  her 
church,  that  she  consented.  Not  daring  to  lose 
sight  of  her,  he  waited  for  her  to  pack  her  trunk, 
and  then,  putting  her  into  a  carriage,  drove  to  the 
monastery  whei-e  he  heard,  after  many  inquiries, 
that  his  boys  were  confined.  The  monk  who  ad- 
mitted him  denied  that  they  were  there,  and  en- 
deavored to  lock  him  into  the  waiting-room  while 
he  went  to  call  the  superior.  But  the  doctor  an- 
ticipated his  movements,  and  as  soon  as  the  monk 


470       SAUNTERINGS    ABOUT    CONSTANTINOPLE 

was  out  of  sight,  started  to  explore  the  house.  By 
good  luck  the  first  door  he  opened  led  into  a  cham- 
ber where  a  sick  boy  was  lying  on  a  bed.  The 
doctor  believed  that  he  recognized  one  of  his  sons ; 
a  few  questions  satisfied  him  that  he  was  right. 
"I  am  your  father,"  he  said  to  the  astonished  lad, 
"run  quickly  and  call  your  brother  and  come  with 
me."  Monastic  discipline  had  not  so  many  attrac- 
tions for  the  boys  as  convent  life  for  the  girl,  and 
the  child  ran  with  alacrity  and  brought  his  brother, 
just  as  the  abbot  and  a  score  of  monks  appeared 
upon  the  scene.  As  the  celerity  of  the  doctor  had 
given  no  opportunity  to  conceal  the  boys,  opposi- 
tion to  the  order  of  the  Pope  was  useless,  and  the 
father  hastened  to  the  gate  where  he  had  left  the 
carriage.  Meantime  the  aunt  had  heard  of  the 
rescue,  and  followed  the  girl  from  the  convent; 
she  implored  her,  by  tears  and  prayers,  to  reverse 
her  decision.  The  doctor  cut  short  the  scene  by 
shoving  his  sons  into  the  carriage  and  driving  rap- 
idly away.  Nor  did  he  trust  them  long  in  Rome. 
The  subsequent  career  of  the  boys  is  not  dwelt 
on  with  pleasure.  One  of  them  enlisted  in  the 
Turkish  army,  married  a  Turkish  wife,  and,  after 
some  years,  deserted  her,  and  ran  away  to  England. 
His  wife  was  taken  into  a  pasha's  family,  who  of- 
fered to  adopt  her  only  child,  a  boy  of  four  years ; 
but  the  mother  preferred  to  bring  him  to  his  grand- 
father. None  of  the  family  had  seen  her,  but  she 
established  her  identity,  and  begged  that  her  child 
might  be  adopted  by  a  good  man,  which  she  knew 
his  grandfather  to  be,  and  receive  a  Christian  train- 


A    VENETIAN   COUNTESS  471 

ing.  The  doctor,  therefore,  adopted  the  grand- 
child, which  had  come  to  him  in  such  a  strange 
way,  and  the  mother  shortly  after  died. 

The  daughter,  whose  acquired  accomplishments 
matched  her  inherited  beauty,  married,  in  time,  a 
Venetian  Count  of  wealth ;  and  the  idler  in  Venice 
may  see  on  the  Grand  Canal,  among  those  mouldy 
edifices  that  could  reveal  so  many  romances,  their 
sumptuous  palace,  and  learn,  if  he  cares  to  learn, 
that  it  is  the  home  of  a  family  happy  in  the  enjoy- 
ment of  most  felicitous  fortune.  In  the  gossip 
with  which  the  best  Italian  society  sometimes 
amuses  itself,  he  might  hear  that  the  Countess  was 
the  daughter  of  a  slave  of  the  Sultan's  harem.  I 
have  given,  however,  the  true  version  of  the  ro- 
mantic story;  but  I  am  ignorant  of  the  social  con- 
dition or  the  race  of  the  mother  of  the  heroine  of 
so  many  adventures.  She  may  have  been  born  in 
the  Caucasus. 


XXVII 

FROM  THE  GOLDEN  HORN  TO  THE 
ACROPOLIS 

nUR  last  day  in  Constantinople  was  a 
bright  invitation  for  us  to  remain  for- 
ever. We  could  have  departed  with- 
out regret  in  a  rain-storm,  but  it  was 
not  so  easy  to  resolve  to  look  our  last  upon  this 
shining  city  and  marvelous  landscape  under  the 
blue  sky  of  May.  Early  in  the  morning  we  climbed 
up  the  Genoese  Tower  in  Galata  and  saw  the  hun- 
dred crescents  of  Stamboul  sparkle  in  the  sun,  the 
Golden  Horn  and  the  Bosphorus,  shifting  pano- 
ramas of  trade  and  pleasure,  the  Propontis  with 
its  purple  islands,  and  the  azure  and  snowy  moun- 
tains of  Asia.  This  massive  tower  is  now  a  fire- 
signal  station,  and  night  and  day  watchmen  look 
out  from  its  battlemented  gallery ;  the  Seraskier 
Tower  opposite  in  Stamboul,  and  another  on  the 
heights  of  the  Asiatic  shore,  keep  the  same  watch 
ov*er  the  inflammable  city.  The  guard  requested 
us  not  to  open  our  parasols  upon  the  gallery  for 
fear  they  would  be  hailed  as  fire-signals. 

The  day  was  spent  in  last  visits  to  the  bazaars, 
in  packing  and  leave-takings,  and  the  passage  of 


LEAVE-TAKINGS  473 

the  custom-house,  for  the  government  encourages 
trade  by  an  export  as  well  as  an  import  duty.  I 
did  not  see  any  of  the  officials,  but  Abd-el-Atti, 
who  had  charge  of  shipping  our  baggage,  reported 
that  the  eyes  of  the  customs  inspector  were  each 
just  the  size  of  a  five-franc  piece.  Chief  among 
our  regrets  at  setting  our  faces  toward  Europe 
was  the  necessity  of  parting  with  Abd-el-Atti  and 
Ahmed ;  the  former  had  been  our  faithful  drago- 
man and  daily  companion  for  five  months,  and  we 
had  not  yet  exhausted  his  adventures  nor  his  stores 
of  Oriental  humor;  and  we  could  not  expect  to 
find  elsewhere  a  character  like  Ahmed,  a  person  so 
shrewd  and  obliging,  and  of  such  amusing  viva- 
city. At  four  o'clock  we  embarked  upon  an  Italian 
steamer  for  Salonica  and  Athens,  a  four  days'  voy- 
age. At  the  last  moment  Abd-el-Atti  would  have 
gone  with  us  upon  the  least  encouragement,  but  we 
had  no  further  need  of  dragoman  or  interpreter, 
and  the  old  man  sadly  descended  the  ladder  to  his 
boat.  I  can  see  him  yet,  his  red  fez  in  the  stern 
of  the  cai'que,  waving  his  large  silk  handkerchief, 
and  slowly  rowing  back  to  Pera,  —  a  melancholy 
figure. 

As  we  steamed  out  of  the  harbor  we  enjoyed  the 
view  we  had  missed  on  entering:  the  Seraglio 
Point  where  blind  old  Dandolo  ran  his  galley 
aground  and  leaped  on  .shore  to  the  assault;  the 
shore  of  Chalcedoii;  the  seven  towers  and  the  old 
wall  behind  Stamboul,  which  Persians,  Arabs, 
Scythians,  and  Latins  have  stormed;  the  long, 
sweeping  coast  and  its  minarets;  the  Prince*' 


474  TO   THE   ACROPOLIS 

Islands  and  Mt.  Olympus,  —  all  this  in  a  setting 
sun  was  superb;  and  we  said,  "There  is  not  its 
equal  in  the  world."  And  the  evening  was  more 
magnificent,  —  a  moon  nearly  full,  a  sweet  and 
rosy  light  on  the  smooth  water,  which  was  at  first 
azure  blue,  and  then  pearly  gray  and  glowing  like 
an  amethyst. 

Smoothly  sailing  all  night,  we  came  at  sunrise  to 
the  entrance  of  the  Dardanelles,  and  stopped  for 
a  couple  of  hours  at  Chanak  Kalessi,  before  the 
guns  of  the  Castle  of  Asia.  The  wide-awake  trad- 
ers immediately  swarmed  on  board  with  their 
barbarous  pottery  and  with  trays  of  cooked  fish, 
onions,  and  bread  for  the  deck  passengers.  The 
latter  were  mostly  Greeks,  and  men  in  the  costume 
which  one  sees  still  in  the  islands  and  the  Asiatic 
coasts,  but  very  seldom  on  the  Grecian  mainland; 
it  consists  of  baggy  trousers,  close  at  the  ankles, 
a  shawl  about  the  waist,  an  embroidered  jacket 
usually  of  sober  color,  and,  the  most  prized  part 
of  their  possessions,  an  arsenal  of  pistols  and 
knives  in.  huge  leathern  holsters,  with  a  heavy 
leathern  flap,  worn  in  front.  Most  of  them  wore 
a  small  red  fez,  the  hair  cut  close  in  front  and  fall- 
ing long  behind  the  ears.  They  are  light  in  com- 
plexion, not  tall,  rather  stout,  and  without  beauty. 
Though  their  dress  is  picturesque  in  plan,  it  is 
usually  very  dirty,  ragged,  and,  the  last  confession 
of  poverty,  patched.  They  were  all  armed  like 
pirates ;  and  when  we  stopped,  a  cracking  fusillade 
along  the  deck  suggested  a  mutiny;  but  -it  was 
only  a  precautionary  measure  of  the  captain,  who 


THE   WOMEN   OF   LEMNOS  475 

compelled  them  to  discharge  their  pistols  into  the 
water  and  then  took  them  from  them. 

Passing  out  of  the  strait  we  saw  the  Rabbit 
Islands  and  Tenedos,  and  caught  a  glimpse  of  the 
Plain  of  Troy  about  as  misty  as  its  mythic  history ; 
and  then  turned  west  between  Imbros  and  Lemnos, 
on  whose  bold  eastern  rock  once  blazed  one  of 
the  signal-fires  which  telegraphed  the  fall  of  Troy 
to  Clytemnestra.  The  first  women  of  Lemnos 
were  altogether  beautiful,  but  they  had  some  pe- 
culiarities which  did  not  recommend  them  to  their 
contemporaries,  and  indeed  their  husbands  were 
accustomed  occasionally  to  hoist  sail  and  bask  in 
the  smiles  of  the  damsels  of  the  Thracian  coast. 
The  Lemnian  women,  to  avoid  any  legal  difficul- 
ties, such  as  arise  nowadays  when  a  woman  asserts 
her  right  to  slay  her  partner,  killed  all  their  hus- 
bands, and  set  up  an  Amazonian  state  which  they 
maintained  with  pride  and  splendor,  permitting  no 
man  to  set  foot  on  the  island.  In  time  this  abso- 
lute freedom  became  a  little  tedious,  and  when  the 
Argonauts  came  that  way,  the  women  advanced  to 
meet  the  heroes  with  garlands,  and  brought  them 
wine  and  food.  This  conduct  pleased  the  Argo- 
nauts, who  made  Lemnos  their  headquarters  and 
celebrated  there  many  a  festive  combat.  Their 
descendants,  the  Minyae,  were  afterwards  over- 
come by  the  Pelasgians,  from  Attica,  who,  remem- 
bering with  regret  the  beautiful  girls  of  their 
home,  returned  and  brought  back  with  them  the 
willing  and  the  lovely-  But  the  children  of  the 
Attic  women  took  on  airs  over  their  superior  birth, 


476  TO   THE   ACROPOLIS 

which  the  Pelasgian  women  resented,  and  the  lat= 
ter  finally  removed  all  cause  of  dispute  by  murder- 
ing all  the  mothers  of  Attica  and  their  offspring. 
These  events  gave  the  ladies  of  Lemnos  a  formid- 
able reputation  in  the  ancient  world,  and  furnish 
an  illustration  of  what  society  would  be  without 
the  refining  and  temperate  influence  of  man. 

To  the  northward  lifted  itself  the  bare  back  of 
Samothrace,  and  beyond  the  dim  outline  of  Thasos, 
ancient  gold-island,  the  home  of  the  poet  Archilo- 
chus,  one  of  the  few  Grecian  islands  which  still 
retain  something  of  their  pristine  luxuriance  of 
vegetation,  where  the  songs  of  innumerable  night- 
ingales invite  to  deep,  flowery  valleys.  Beyond 
Thasos  is  the  Thracian  coast  and  Mt.  Pangaus, 
and  at  the  foot  of  it  Philippi,  the  Macedonian  town 
where  republican  Rome  fought  its  last  battle, 
where  Cassius  leaned  upon  his  sword-point,  be- 
lieving everything  lost.  Brutus  transported  the 
body  of  his  comrade  to  Thasos  and  raised  for  him 
a  funeral  pyre ;  and  twenty  days  later,  on  the  same 
field,  met  again  that  spectre  of  death  which  had 
summoned  him  to  Philippi.  It  was  only  eleven 
years  after  this  victory  of  the  Imperial  power  that 
a  greater  triumph  was  won  at  Philippi,  when  Paul 
and  Silas,  cast  into  prison,  sang  praises  unto  God 
at  midnight,  and  an  earthquake  shook  the  house 
and  opened  the  prison  doors. 

In  the  afternoon  we  came  in  sight  of  snowy  Mt. 
Athos,  an  almost  perpendicular  limestone  rock, 
rising  nearly  six  thousand  four  hundred  feet  out 
of  the  sea.  The  slender  promontory  which  this 


MT.    ATHOS  477 

magnificent  mountain  terminates  is  forty  miles 
long  and  has  an  average  breadth  of  only  four  miles. 
The  ancient  canal  of  Xerxes  quite  severed  it  from 
the  mainland.  The  peninsula,  level  at  the  canal, 
is  a  jagged  stretch  of  mountains  (seamed  by 
chasms),  which  rise  a  thousand,  two  thousand,  four 
thousand  feet,  and  at  last  front  the  sea  with  the 
sublime  peak  of  Athos,  the  site  of  the  most  con- 
spicuous beacon-fire  of  Agamemnon.  The  entire 
promontory  is,  and  has  been  since  the  time  of  Con- 
stantine,  ecclesiastic  ground ;  every  mountain  and 
valley  has  its  convent;  besides  the  twenty  great 
monasteries  are  many  pious  retreats.  All  the  sects 
of  the  Greek  Church  are  here  represented;  the 
communities  pay  a  tribute  to  the  Sultan,  but  the 
government  is  in  the  hands  of  four  presidents, 
chosen  by  the  synod,  which  holds  weekly  sessions 
and  takes  the  presidents,  yearly,  from  the  monas- 
teries in  rotation.  Since  their  foundation  these  re- 
ligious houses  have  maintained  against  Christians 
and  Saracens  an  almost  complete  independence, 
and  preserved  in  their  primitive  simplicity  the 
manners  and  usages  of  the  earliest  foundations. 
Here,  as  nowhere  else  in  Europe  or  Asia,  can  one 
behold  the  architecture,  the  dress,  the  habits  of  the 
Middle  Agfcs.  The  good  devotees  have  been  able 
to  keep  themselves  thus  in  the  darkness  and  sim- 
plicity of  the  past  by  a  rigorous  exclusion  of  tho 
sex  always  impatient  of  monotony,  to  which  all  the 
changes  of  the  world  are  due.  No  woman,  from 
the  beginning  till  now,  has  ever  been  permitted  to 
set  foot  on  the  peninsula.  Nor  is  this  all;  no 


478  TO   THE   ACROPOLIS 

female  animal  is  suffered  on  the  holy  mountain, 
not  even  a  hen.  I  suppose,  though  I  do  not  know, 
that  the  monks  have  an  inspector  of  eggs,  whose 
inherited  instincts  of  aversion  to  the  feminine  gen- 
der enable  him  to  detect  and  reject  all  those  in 
which  lurk  the  dangerous  sex.  Few  of  the  monks 
eat  meat,  half  the  days  of  the  year  are  fast  days, 
they  practice  occasionally  abstinence  from  food  for 
two  or  three  days,  reducing  their  pulses  to  the  fee- 
blest beating,  and  subduing  their  bodies  to  a  point 
that  destroys  their  value  even  as  spiritual  taberna- 
cles. The  united  community  is  permitted  to  keep 
a  guard  of  fifty  Christian  soldiers,  and  the  only 
Moslem  on  the  island  is  the  solitary  Turkish  officer 
who  represents  the  Sultan;  his  position  cannot 
be  one  generally  coveted  by  the  Turks,  since  the 
society  of  women  is  absolutely  denied  him.  The 
libraries  of  Mt.  Athos  are  full  of  unarranged  man- 
uscripts, which  are  probably  mainly  filled  with  the 
theologic  rubbish  of  the  controversial  ages,  and  can 
scarcely  be  expected  to  yield  again  anything  so 
valuable  as  the  Tischendorf  Scriptures. 

At  sunset  we  were  close  under  Mt.  Athos,  and 
could  distinguish  the  buildings  of  the  Laura  Con- 
vent, amid  the  woods  beneath  the  frowning  cliff. 
And  now  was  produced  the  apparition  of  a  sunset, 
with  this  towering  mountain  cone  for  a  centre- 
piece, that  surpassed  all  our  experience  and  im- 
agination. The  sea  was  like  satin  for  smoothness, 
absolutely  v/aveless,  and  shone  with  the  colors  of 
changeable  silk,  blue,  green,  pink,  and  amethyst. 
Heavy  clouds  gathered  about  the  sun,  and  from 


THESSALONICA  479 

behind  them  he  exhibited  burning  spectacles,  mag- 
nificent fireworks,  vast  shadow-pictures,  scarlet 
cities,  and  gigantic  figures  stalking  across  the  sky. 
From  one  crater  of  embers  he  shot  up  a  fan-like 
flame  that  spread  to  the  zenith  and  was  reflected 
on  the  water.  His  rays  lay  along  the  sea  in  pink, 
and  the  water  had  the  sheen  of  iridescent  glass. 
The  whole  sea  for  leagues  was  like  this ;  even  Lem- 
nos  and  Samothrace  lay  in  a  dim  pink  and  purple 
light  in  the  east.  There  were  vast  clouds  in  huge 
walls,  with  towers  and  battlements,  and  in  all  fan- 
tastic shapes,  —  one  a  gigantic  cat  with  a  preter- 
natural tail,  a  cat  of  doom  four  degrees  long.  All 
this  was  piled  about  Mt.  Athos,  with  its  sharp 
summit  of  snow,  its  dark  sides  of  rock. 

It  is  a  pity  that  the  sounding  and  somewhat 
sacred  name  of  Thessalonica  has  been  abbreviated 
to  Salonica;  it  might  better  have  reverted  to  its 
ancient  name  of  Therma,  which  distinguished  the 
Macedonian  capital  up  to  the  time  of  Alexander. 
In  the  early  morning  we  were  lying  before  the  city, 
and  were  told  that  we  should  stay  till  midnight, 
waiting  for  the  mail.  From  whence  a  mail  was 
expected  I  do  not  know;  the  traveler  who  sails 
these  seas  with  a  cargo  of  ancient  history  resents 
in  these  classic  localities  such  attempts  to  imitate 
modern  fashions.  Were  the  Dardanians  or  the 
Mesians  to  send  us  letters  in  a  leathern  bag?  We 
were  prepared  for  a  summons  from  Calo-John,  at 
the  head  of  his  wild  barbarians,  to  surrender  the 
city;  and  we  should  have  liked  to  see  Boniface, 
Marquis  of  Montferrat  and  King  of  Thessalonica, 


480  TO    THE   ACROPOLIS 

issue  from  the  fortress  above  the  town,  the  shields 
and  lances  of  his  little  band  of  knights  shining  in 
the  sun,  and  answer  in  person  the  insolent  demand. 
We  were  prepared  to  see  the  troop  return,  having 
left  the  head  of  Boniface  in  the  possession  of  Calo- 
John;  and  if  our  captain  had  told  us  that  the 
steamer  would  wait  to  attend  the  funeral  of  the 
Bulgarian  chief  himself,  which  occurred  not  long- 
after  the  encounter  with  Boniface,  we  should  have 
thought  it  natural. 

The  city  lies  on  a  fine  bay  and  presents  an  at- 
tractive appearance  from  the  harbor,  rising  up  the 
hill  in  the  form  of  an  amphitheatre.  On  all  sides, 
except  the  sea,  ancient  walls  surround  it,  fortified 
at  the  angles  by  large  round  towers  and  crowned  in 
the  centre,  on  the  hill,  by  a  respectable  citadel.  I 
suppose  that  portions  of  these  walls  are  of  Hellenic 
and  perhaps  Pelasgic  date,  but  the  most  are  prob- 
ably of  the  time  of  the  Latin  crusaders'  occupation, 
patched  and  repaired  by  Saracens  and  Turks.  We 
had  come  to  Thessalonica  on  St.  Paul's  account,  not 
expecting  to  see  much  that  would  excite  us,  and  we 
were  not  disappointed.  When  we  went  ashore  we 
found  ourselves  in  a  city  of  perhaps  sixty  thousand 
inhabitants,  commonplace  in  aspect,  although  its 
bazaars  are  well  filled  with  European  goods,  and 
a  fair  display  of  Oriental  stuffs  and  antiquities, 
and  animated  by  considerable  briskness  of  trade. 
I  presume  there  are  more  Jews  here  than  there 
were  in  Paul's  time,  but  Turks  and  Greeks,  in 
nearly  equal  numbers,  form  the  bulk  of  the  popu- 
lation. 


THE   JEWS   OF   SALONICA  481 

In  modern  Salonica  there  is  not  much  respect 
for  pagan  antiquities,  and  one  sees  only  the  usual 
fragments  of  columns  and  sculptures  worked  into 
walls  or  incorporated  in  Christian  churches.  But 
those  curious  in  early  Byzantine  architecture  will 
find  more  to  interest  them  here  than  in  any  place 
in  the  world  except  Constantinople.  We  spent 
the  day  wandering  about  the  city,  under  the  guid- 
ance of  a  young  Jew,  who  was  without  either  pre- 
judices or  information.  On  our  way  to  the  Mosque 
of  St.  Sophia,  we  passed  through  the  quarter  of 
the  Jews,  which  is  much  cleaner  than  is  usual  with 
them.  These  are  the  descendants  of  Spanish  Jews, 
who  were  expelled  by  Isabella,  and  they  still  re- 
tain, in  a  corrupt  form,  the  language  of  Spain. 
In  the  doors  and  windows  were  many  pretty  Jew- 
esses; banishment  and  vicissitude  appear  to  agree 
with  this  elastic  race,  for  in  all  the  countries  of 
Europe  Jewish  women  develop  more  beauty  in  form 
and  feature  than  in  Palestine.  We  saw  here  and 
in  other  parts  of  the  city  a  novel  head-dress,  which 
may  commend  itself  to  America  in  the  revolutions 
of  fashion.  A  great  mass  of  hair,  real  or  as- 
sumed, was  gathered  into  a  long,  slender  green 
bag,  which  hung  down  the  back  and  was  termi- 
nated by  a  heavy  fringe  of  silver.  Otherwise,  the 
dress  of  the  Jewish  women  does  not  differ  much 
from  that  of  the  men;  the  latter  wear  a  fez  or 
turban,  and  a  tunic  which  reaches  to  the  ankles, 
and  is  bound  about  the  waist  by  a  gay  sash  or 
shawl. 

The  Mosque  of  St.   Sophia,  once  a  church,  and 


482  TO   THE   ACROPOLIS 

copied  in  its  proportions  and  style  from  its  name- 
sake in  Constantinople,  is  retired,  in  a  delightful 
court,  shaded  by  gigantic  trees  and  cheered  by  a 
fountain.  So  peaceful  a  spot  we  had  not  seen  in 
many  a  day;  birds  sang  in  the  trees  without  dis- 
turbing the  calm  of  the  meditative  pilgrim.  In 
the  portico  and  also  in  the  interior  are  noble  col- 
umns of  marble  and  verd-antique,  and  in  the  dome 
is  a  wonderfully  quaint  mosaic  of  the  Transfigu- 
ration. We  were  shown  also  a  magnificent  pulpit 
of  the  latter  beautiful  stone,  cut  from  a  solid  block, 
in  which  it  is  said  St.  Paul  preached.  As  the 
Apostle,  according  to  his  custom,  reasoned  with 
the  people  out  of  the  Scriptures  in  a  synagogue, 
and  this  church  was  not  built  for  centuries  after 
his  visit,  the  statement  needs  confirmation;-  but 
pious  ingenuity  suggests  that  the  pulpit  stood  in  a 
subterranean  church  underneath  this.  I  should 
like  to  believe  that  Paul  sanctified  this  very  spot 
with  his  presence ;  but  there  is  little  in  its  quiet 
seclusion  to  remind  one  of  him  who  had  the  repu- 
tation, when  he  was  in  Thessalonica,  of  one  of 
those  who  turn  the  world  upside  down.  Paul  had 
a  great  affection  for  the  brethren  of  this  city,  in 
spite  of  his  rough  usage  here,  for  he  mingles  few 
reproaches  in  his  fervent  commendations  of  their 
faith,  and  comforts  them  with  the  assurance  of  a 
speedy  release  from  the  troubles  of  this  world,  and 
the  certainty  that  while  they  are  yet  alive  they  will 
be  caught  up  into  the  clouds  to  meet  the  Lord  in 
the  air.  Happily  the  Apostle  could  not  pierce  the 
future  and  see  the  dissensions,  the  schisinc,  the 


PAUL'S  PULPIT  483 

corruptions  and  calamities  of  the  church  in  the 
succeeding  centuries,  nor  know  that  near  this  spot, 
in  the  Imperial  Hippodrome,  the  sedition  of  the 
citizens  would  one  day  be  punished  by  the  massa- 
cre of  ninety  thousand,  —  one  of  the  few  acts  of 
inhumanity  which  stains  the  clemency  and  the 
great  name  of  Theodosius.  And  it  would  have 
passed  even  the  belief  of  the  Apostle  to  the  Gen- 
tiles could  he  have  foreseen  that,  in  eighteen  cen- 
turies, this  pulpit  would  be  exhibited  to  curious 
strangers  from  a  distant  part  of  the  globe,  of 
which  he  never  heard,  where  the  doctrines  of  Paul 
are  the  bulwark  of  the  church  and  the  stamina  of 
the  government,  by  a  descendant  of  Abraham  who 
confessed  that  he  did  not  know  who  Paiil  was. 

The  oldest  church  in  the  city  is  now  the  Mosque 
of  St.  George,  built  about  the  year  400,  if  indeed 
it  was  not  transformed  from  a  heathen  temple ;  its 
form  is  that  of  the  Roman  Pantheon.  The  dome 
was  once  covered  with  splendid  mosaics;  enough 
remains  of  the  architectural  designs,  the  brilliant 
peacocks  and  bright  blue  birds,  to  show  what  the 
ancient  beauty  was,  but  the  walls  of  the  mosque 
are  white  and  barn-like.  Religions  inherit  each 
other's  edifices  in  the  East  without  shame,  and  we 
found  in  the  Mosque  of  Eske  Djuma  the  remains 
of  a  temple  of  Venus,  and  columns  of  ancient 
Grecian  work  worthy  of  the  best  days  of  Athens. 
The  most  perfect  basilica  is  now  the  Mosque  of  St. 
Demetrius  (a  name  sacred  to  the  Greeks'),  which 
contains  his  tomb.  It  is  a  five-aisled  basilica; 
about  the  gallery,  over  the  pillars  of  the  centre 


484  TO    THE   ACROPOLIS 

aisle,  are  some  fine  mosaics  of  marble,  beautiful 
in  design  and  color.  The  Moslems  have  spoiled 
the  exquisite  capitals  of  the  pillars  by  painting 
them,  and  have  destroyed  the  effect  of  the  aisles  by 
twisting  the  pulpit  and  prayer-niche  away  from 
the  apse,  in  the  direction  of  Mecca.  We  noticed, 
however,  a  relaxation  of  bigotry  at  all  these 
mosques :  we  were  permitted  to  enter  without  tak- 
ing off  our  shoes ;  and,  besides '  the  figures  of 
Christian  art  left  in  the  mosaics,  we  saw  some 
Moslem  pictures,  among  them  rude  paintings  of 
the  holy  city  Mecca. 

On  our  way  to  the  citadel  we  stopped  to  look  at 
the  Arch  of  Constantino  before  the  Gate  of  Cas- 
sander,  — a  shabby  ruin,  with  four  courses  of  de- 
faced figures,  carved  in  marble,  and  representing 
the  battles  and  triumphs  of  a  Roman  general. 
Fortunately  for  the  reader,  we  did  not  visit  all  the 
thirty-seven  churches  of  the  city;  but  we  made 
the  acquaintance  in  a  Greek  church,  which  is 
adorned  with  quaint  Byzantine  paintings,  of  St. 
Palema,  who  lies  in  public  repose,  in  a  coffin  of 
exquisite  silver  filigree-work,  while  his  skull  is  in- 
closed in  solid  silver  and  set  with  rubies  and  emer- 
alds. This  may  please  St.  Palema,  but  death  is 
never  so  ghastly  as  when  it  is  adorned  with  jewelry 
that  becomes  cheap  in  its  presence. 

The  view  from  the  citadel,  which  embraces  the 
Gulf  of  Salonica  and  Mt.  Olympus,  the  veritable 
heaven  of  the  Grecian  pantheon,  and  Mt.  Ossa 
and  Mt.  Pelion,  piercing  the  blue  with  their  snow- 
summits,  is  grand  enough  to  repay  the  ascent ;  and 


THE    GREEK   HEAVEN  485 

there  is  a  noble  walk  along  the  wall  above  the  town. 
In  making  my  roundabout  way  through  modern 
streets  back  to  the  bazaars,  I  encountered  a  num- 
ber of  negro  women,  pure  Africans,  who  had  the 
air  and  carriage  of  the  aristocracy  of  the  place ; 
they  rejoiced  in  the  gay  attire  which  the  natives 
of  the  South  love,  and  their  fine  figures  and  inde- 
pendent bearing  did  not  speak  of  servitude. 

This  Thessalonica  was  doubtless  a  healthful  and 
attractive  place  at  the  time  Cicero  chose  to  pass  a 
portion  of  his  exile  here,  but  it  has  now  a  bad 
reputation  for  malaria,  which  extends  to  all  the 
gulf,  —  the  malaria  seems  everywhere  to  have  been 
one  of  the  consequences  of  the  fall  of  the  Roman 
Empire.  The  handbook  recommends  the  locality 
for  its  good  "shooting;"  but  if  there  is  any  part 
of  the  Old  World  that  needs  rest  from  arms,  I 
think  it  is  this  highway  of  ancient  and  modern 
conquerors  and  invaders. 

In  the  evening,  when  the  lights  of  the  town  and 
the  shore  were  reflected  in  the  water,  and  a  full 
moon  hung  in  the  sky,  we  did  not  regret  our  delay. 
The  gay  Thessalonians,  ignorant  of  the  Epistles, 
were  rowing  about  the  harbor,  circling  round  and 
round  the  steamer,  beating  the  darabouka  drum, 
and  singing  in  that  nasal  whine  which  passes  for 
music  all  over  the  East.  And,  indeed,  on  such  a 
night  it  is  not  without  its  effect  upon  a  sentimental 
mind. 

At  early  light  of  a  cloudless  morning  we  were 
going  easily  down  the  Gulf  of  Thermae  or  Salonica, 
having  upon  our  right  the  Pierian  plain;  and  I 


486  TO    THE   ACROPOLIS 

tried  to  distinguish  the  two  mounds  which  mark 
the  place  of  the  great  battle  near  Pydna,  one  hun- 
dred and  sixty-eight  years  before  Christ,  between 
jEmilius  Paulus  and  King  Perseus,  which  gave 
Macedonia  to  the  Roman  Empire.  Beyond,  almost 
ten  thousand  feet  in  the  air,  towered  Olympus, 
upon  whose  "broad"  summit  Homer  displays  the 
ethereal  palaces  and  inaccessible  abode  of  the  Gre- 
cian gods.  Shaggy  forests  still  clothe  its  sides, 
but  snow  now,  and  for  the  greater  part  of  the  year, 
covers  the  wide  surface  of  the  height,  which  is  a 
sterile,  light-colored  rock.  The  gods  did  not  want 
snow  to  cool  the  nectar  at  their  banquets.  This 
is  the  very  centre  of  the  mythologic  world ;  there 
between  Olympus  and  Ossa  is  the  Vale  of  Tempe, 
where  the  Peneus,  breaking  through  a  narrow 
gorge  fringed  with  the  sacred  laurel,  reaches  the 
gulf  south  of  ancient  Heracleum.  Into  this  charm- 
ing but  secluded  retreat  the  gods  and  goddesses, 
weary  of  the  icy  air,  or  the  Pumblechookian  de- 
portment of  the  court  of  Olympian  Jove,  descended 
to  pass  the  sunny  hours  with  the  youths  and  maid- 
ens of  mortal  mould ;  through  this  defile  marks  of 
chariot-wheels  still  attest  the  passages  of  armies 
which  flowed  either  way,  in  invasion  or  retreat; 
and  here  Pompey,  after  a  ride  of  forty  miles  from 
the  fatal  field  of  Pharsalia,  quenched  his  thirst. 
Did  the  Greeks  really  believe  that  the  gods  dwelt 
on  this  mountain  in  clouds  and  snow?  Did  Bald- 
win II.  believe  that  he  sold,  and  Louis  IX.  of 
France  that  he  bought,  for  ten  thousand  marks  of 
silver,  at  Constantinople,  in  the  thirteenth  cen- 


THE    AEGEAN    ISLANDS  487 

tury,  the  veritable  crown  of  thorns  that  the  Saviour 
wore  in  the  judgment-hall  of  Pilate? 

At  six  o'clock  the  Cape  of  Posilio  was  on  our 
left,  we  were  sinking  Olympus  in  the  white  haze 
of  morning,  Ossa  in  its  huge  silver  bulk  was  near 
us,  and  Pelion  stretched  its  long  white  back  below. 
The  sharp  cone  of  Ossa  might  well  ride  upon  the 
extended  back  of  Pelion,  and  it  seems  a  pity  that 
the  Titans  did  not  succeed  in  their  attempt.  We 
were  leaving,  and  looking  our  last  on  the  Thracian 
coasts,  once  rimmed  from  Mt.  Athos  to  the  Bos- 
phorus  with  a  wreath  of  prosperous  cities.  What 
must  once  have  been  the  splendor  of  the  ^Egean 
Sea  and  its  islands,  when  every  island  was  the  seat 
of  a  vigorous  state,  and  every  harbor  the  site  of  a 
commercial  town  which  sent  forth  adventurous  gal- 
leys upon  any  errand  of  trade  or  conquest  I  Since 
the  fall  of  Constantinople,  these  coasts  and  islands 
have  been  stripped  and  neglected  by  Turkish  ava- 
rice and  improvidence,  and  perhaps  their  naked 
aspect  is  attributable  more  to  the  last  owners  than 
to  all  the  preceding  possessors ;  it  remained  for  the 
Turk  to  exhaust  Nature  herself,  and  to  accomplish 
that  ruin,  that  destruction  of  peoples,  which  cer- 
tainly not  the  Athenian,  the  Roman,  or  the  Mace- 
donian accomplished,  to  destroy  that  which  sur- 
vived the  contemptible  Byzantines  and  escaped 
the  net  of  the  pillaging  Christian  crusaders.  Yet 
it  needs  only  repose,  the  confidence  of  the  protec- 
tion of  industry,  and  a  spirit  of  toleration,  which 
the  Greeks  must  learn  as  well  as  the  Turks,  that 
the  traveler  in  the  beginning  of  the  next  century 


488  TO   THE   ACROPOLIS 

may  behold  in  the  Archipelago  the  paradise  of  the 
world. 

We  sailed  along  by  the  peninsula  of  Magnesia, 
which  separates  the  .ZEgean  from  the  Bay  of  Pa- 
gasseus,  and  hinders  us  from  seeing  the  plains  of 
Thessaly,  where  were  trained  the  famous  cavalry, 
the  perfect  union  of  horse  and  man  that  gave  rise 
to  the  fable  of  centaurs;  the  same  conception  of 
double  prowess  which  our  own  early  settlers  exag- 
gerated in  the  notion  that  the  Kentuckian  was  half 
horse  and  half  alligator.  Just  before  we  entered 
the  group  of  lovely  Sporades,  we  looked  down  the 
long  narrow  inlet  to  the  Bay  of  Maliacus,  and  saw 
the  sharp  snow-peaks  of  Mt.  CEta,  at  the  foot  of 
which  are  the  marsh  and  hot  springs  of  Thermo- 
pylae. We  passed  between  Skiathos  and  Skopelos, 
—  steep,  rocky  islands,  well  wooded  and  enlivened 
with  villages  perched  on  the  hillsides,  and  both 
draped  in  lovely  color.  In  the  strait  between 
Skiathos  and  Magnesia  the  Greek  vessels  made 
a  stand  against  the  Persians,  until  the  defeat 
at  Thermopylae  compelled  a  retreat  to  Salamis. 
The  monks  of  the  Middle  Ages,  who  had  an  eye 
for  a  fertile  land,  covered  the  little  island  with 
monasteries,  of  which  one  only  now  remains.  Its 
few  inhabitants  are  chiefly  sailors,  and  to-day  it 
would  be  wholly  without  fame  were  it  not  for  the 
beauty  of  its  women.  Skopelos,  which  is  larger, 
has  a  population  of  over  six  thousand,  —  indus- 
trious people  who  cultivate  the  olive  and  produce 
a  good  red  wine,  that  they  export  in  their  own 
vessels, 


EUBCEA    AND    THE    SPORADES  489 

Nearly  all  day  we  sailed  outside  and  along  Eu- 
boea;  and  the  snow  dusting  its  high  peaks  and 
lonely  ravines  was  a  not  unwelcome  sight,  for  the 
day  was  warm,  oppressively  so  even  at  sea.  All 
the  elements  lay  in  a  languid  truce.  Before  it 
was  hidden  by  Skopelos,  Mt.  Athos  again  as- 
serted its  lordship  over  these  seas,  more  gigantic 
than  when  we  were  close  to  it,  the  sun  striking  the 
snow  on  its  face  (it  might  be  the  Whiteface  of  the 
Adirondacks,  except  that  it  is  piled  up  more  like 
the  Matterhorn),  while  the  base,  bathed  in  a  silver 
light,  was  indistinguishable  from  the  silver  water 
out  of  which  it  rose.  The  islands  were  all  purple, 
the  shores  silver,  and  the  sea  around  us  deeply 
azure.  What  delicious  color ! 

Perhaps  it  was  better  to  coast  along  the  Eu- 
boean  land  and  among  the  Sporades,  clothed  in 
our  minds  with  the  historic  hues  which  the  atmos- 
phere reproduced  to  our  senses,  than  to  break  the 
dream  by  landing,  to  find  only  broken  fragments 
where  cities  once  were,  and  a  handful  of  fishermen 
or  shepherds  the  only  inheritors  of  the  homes  of 
heroes.  We  should  find  nothing  on  Ikos,  except 
rabbits  and  a  hundred  or  two  of  fishers,  perhaps 
not  even  the  grave  .of  Peleus,  the  father  of 
Achilles;  and  the  dozen  little  rocky  islets  near, 
which  some  giant  in  sportive  mood  may  have  tossed 
into  the  waves,  would  altogether  scarcely  keep 
from  famine  a  small  flock  of  industrious  sheep. 
Skyros,  however,  has  not  forgotten  its  ancient  fer- 
tility; the  well-watered  valleys,  overlooked  by  bold 
mountains  and  rocky  peaks  (upon  one  of  which 


490  TO   THE   ACROPOLIS. 

stood  "the  lofty  Skyros"  of  Homer's  song),  still 
bear  corn  and  wine,  tlie  fig  and  the  olive,  the 
orange  and  the  lemon,  as  in  the  days  when 
Achilles,  in  woman's  apparel,  was  hidden  among 
the  maidens  in  the  gardens  of  King  Lycomedes. 
The  mountains  are  clothed  with  oaks,  beeches,  firs, 
and  plane-trees.  Athens  had  a  peculiar  affection 
for  Skyros,  for  it  was  there  that  Cymon  found  the 
bones  of  Theseus,  and  transported  them  thence  to 
the  temple  of  the  hero,  where  they  were  deposited 
with  splendid  obsequies,  ^Eschylus  and  Sophocles 
adding  to  the  festivities  the  friendly  rivalry  of  a 
dramatic  contest.  In  those  days  everything  was 
for  the  state  and  nothing  for  the  man ;  and  nat- 
urally—  such  is  the  fruit  of  self-abnegation  — 
the  state  was  made  immortal  by  the  genius  of  its 
men. 

Of  the  three  proud  flagstaffs  erected  in  front  of 
St.  Mark's,  one,  for  a  long  time,  bore  the  banner 
of  Eubosa,  or  Negropont,  symbol  of  the  Venetian 
sovereignty  for  nearly  three  centuries  over  this 
island,  which  for  four  centuries  thereafter  was  to 
be  cursed  by  the  ascendency  of  the  crescent. 
From  the  outer  shore  one  "can  form  little  notion  of 
the  extraordinary  fertility  of  this  land,  and  we  al- 
most regretted  that  a  rough  sea  had  not  driven  us 
to  take  the  inner  passage,  by  Boeotia  and  through 
the  narrow  Euripus,  where  the  Venetian -built  town 
and  the  Lion  of  St.  Mark  occupy  and  guard  the 
site  of  ancient  Chalkis.  The  Turks  made  the 
name  of  Negropont  odious  to  the  world,  but  with 
the  restoration  of  the  Grecian  nationality  the  an- 


THE   CYCLADES  491 

cient  name  is  restored,  and  slowly,  Euboea,  spoiled 
by  the  Persians,  trampled  by  Macedonians  and 
Romans,  neglected  by  Justinian  (the  depopulator 
of  the  Eastern  Empire),  drained  by  the  Venetians, 
blighted  by  the  Osmanlis,  is  beginning  to  attract 
the  attention  of  capital  and  travel,  by  its  unequaled 
fertility  and  its  almost  unequaled  scenery. 

Romance,  mythology,  and  history  start  out  of 
the  waves  on  either  hand ;  at  twilight  we  were  en- 
tering the  Cyclades,  and  beginning  to  feel  the  yet 
enduring  influence  of  a  superstition  which  so  min- 
gled itself  with  the  supremest  art  and  culture,  that 
after  two  thousand  years  its  unreal  creations  are 
nearly  as  mighty  as  ever  in  the  realms  of  poetry 
and  imagination.  These  islands  are  still  under 
the  spell  of  genius,  and  we  cannot,  if  we  would, 
view  them  except  through  the  medium  of  poetic 
history.  I  suppose  that  the  island  of  Andros, 
which  is  cultivated  largely  by  Albanians,  an  Illy- 
rian  race,  having  nothing  in  common  with  the  an- 
cient lonians,  would  little  interest  us ;  if  we  cared 
to  taste  its  wine,  it  would  be  because  it  was  once 
famous  throughout  Greece,  and  if  we  visited  the 
ruins  of  its  chief  city,  it  woidd  be  to  recall  an  an- 
ecdote of  Herodotus:  when  Themistocles  besieged 
the  town  and  demanded  tribute,  because  the  An- 
drians  had  been  compelled  to  join  the  fleet  of 
Xerxes  at  Salamis,  and  threatened  them  with  the 
two  mighty  deities  of  Athens,  Persuasion  and 
Necessity,  the  spirited  islanders  replied  that  they 
were  protected  by  two  churlish  gods,  Poverty  and 
Inability. 


492  TO   THE    ACROPOLIS 

It  was  eleven  o'clock  at  night  when  we  sailed 
between  Keos  and  Helena,  the  latter  a  long  barren 
strip  that  seems  never  to  have  been  inhabited  at 
all,  except  from  the  tradition  that  Helen  once 
landed  there;  but  Keos,  and  its  old  town  of  lulis, 
was  the  home  of  legends  and  poets,  and  famous  for 
its  code  of  laws,  one  of  which  tended  to  banish 
sickness  and  old  age  from  its  precincts,  by  a  pro- 
vision that  every  man  above  sixty  should  end  his 
life  by  poison.  Its  ancient  people  had  a  reputa- 
tion for  purity  and  sobriety,  which  was  probably 
due  to  the  hegira  of  the  nymphs,  who  were  fright- 
ened away  to  the  mainland  by  a  roaring  lion.  The 
colossal  image  of  the  lion  is  still  to  be  seen  in  mar- 
ble near  the  ruins  of  the  old  city.  The  island  of 
the  Cyclades  which  we  should  have  liked  most  to 
tread,  but  did  not  see,  is  Delos,  the  holy,  the  reli- 
gious and  political  centre  of  the  Greek  confeder- 
ation, the  birthplace  of  Apollo  and  Artemis,  the 
seat  of  the  oracle,  second  only  to  that  of  Delphi, 
the  diminutive  and  now  almost  deserted  rock, 
shaken  and  sunken  by  repeated  earthquakes,  once 
crowned  with  one  of  the  most  magnificent  temples 
of  antiquity,  the  spot  of  pilgrimage,  the  arena  of 
games  and  mystic  dances  and  poetic  contests,  and 
of  the  joyous  and  solemn  festivities  of  the  Delian 
Apollo. 

We  were  too  late  to  see,  though  we  sat  long  on 
deck  and  watched  for  it  by  the  aid  of  a  full  moon, 
the  white  Doric  columns  of  the  temple  of  Minerva 
on  Sunium,  which  are  visible  by  daylight  a  long 
distance  at  sea.  The  ancient  mariners,  who  came 


THE   TEMPLE    OF   MINERVA  493 

from  Delos  or  from  a  more  adventurous  voyage  into 
the  .ZEgean,  beheld  here,  at  the  portals  of  Attica, 
the  temple  of  its  tutelary  deity,  a  welcome  and  a 
beacon;  and  as  they  shifted  their  sails  to  round 
the  cape,  they  might  have  seen  the  shining  helmet 
of  the  goddess  herself,  —  the  lofty  statue  of  Mi- 
nerva Promachus  on  the  Acropolis. 


XXVIII 

ATHENS 

N  the  thought  of  the  least  classical 
reader,  Attica  occupies  a  space  almost 
as  large  as  the  rest  of  the  world.  He 
hopes  that  it  will  broaden  on  his  sight 
as  it  does  in  his  imagination,  although  he  knows 
that  it  is  only  two  thirds  as  large  as  the  little 
State  of  Rhode  Island.  But  however  reason  may 
modify  enthusiasm,  the  diminutive  scale  on  which 
everything  is  drawn  is  certain  to  disappoint  the 
first  view  of  the  reality.  Who,  he  asks,  has  made 
this  little  copy  of  the  great  Athenian  picture  ? 

When  we  came  upon  deck  early  in  the  morning, 
the  steamer  lay  in  the  land-locked  harbor  of  the 
peninsula  of  Piraeus.  It  is  a  round,  deep,  pretty 
harbor;  several  merchant  and  small  vessels  lay 
there,  a  Greek  and  an  Austrian  steamer,  and  a 
war-vessel,  and  the  scene  did  not  lack  a  look  of 
prosperous  animation.  About  the  port  clusters 
a  well- to-do- village  of  some  ten  thousand  inhab- 
itants, many  of  whom  dwell  in  handsome  houses. 
It  might  be  an  American  town ;  it  is  too  new  to  be 
European.  There,  at  the  entrance  of  the  harbor, 
on  a  low  projecting  rock,  are  some  ruins  of  col- 


495 

umns,  said  to  mark  the  tomb  of  Themistocles ; 
sometimes  the  water  nearly  covers  the  rock.  There 
could  be  no  more  fitting  resting-place  for  the  great 
commander  than  this,  in  sight  of  the  strait  of  Sa- 
lamis,  and  washed  by  the  waves  that  tossed  the 
broken  and  flying  fleet  of  Xerxes.  Beyond  is  the 
Bay  of  Phalerum,  the  more  ancient  seaport  of 
the  little  state.  And  there  —  how  small  it  seems ! 
—  is  the  plain  of  Athens,  inclosed  by  Hymettus, 
Pentelicns,  and  Panics.  This  rocky  peninsula  of 
Piraeus,  which  embraced  three  small  harbors,  was 
fortified  by  Themistocles  with  strong  walls  that 
extended,  in  parallel  lines,  five  miles  to  Athens. 
Between  them  ran  the  great  carriage-road,  and  I 
suppose  the  whole  distance  was  a  street  of  gardens 
and  houses. 

A  grave  commissionnaire,  —  I  do  not  know  but 
he  would  call  himself  an  embassy,  —  from  one  of 
the  hotels  of  Athens,  came  off  and  quietly  took 
charge  of  us.  On  our  way  to  the  shore  with  our 
luggage,  a  customs  officer  joined  us  and  took  a  seat 
in  the  boat.  For  this  polite  attention  on  the  part 
of  the  government  our  plenipotentiary  sent  by  the 
officer  (who  did  not  open  the  trunks)  three  francs 
to  the  treasury;  but  I  do  not  know  if  it  ever 
reached  its  destination.  We  shunned  the  ignoble 
opportunity  of  entering  the  classic  city  by  rail,  and 
were  soon  whirling  along  the  level  and  dusty  road 
which  follows  the  course  of  the  ancient  Long  Wall. 
Even  at  this  early  hour  the  day  had  become  very 
warm,  and  the  shade  of  the  poplar-trees,  which 
line  the  road  nearly  all  the  way,  was  grateful. 


496  ATHENS 

The  fertile  fields  had  yet  the  freshness  of  spring, 
and  were  gay  with  scarlet  poppies ;  the  vines  were 
thrifty.  The  near  landscape  was  Italian  in  char- 
acter :  there  was  little  peculiar  in  the  costumes  of 
the  people  whom  we  met  walking  beside  their  mar- 
ket-wagons or  saw  laboring  in  the  gardens ;  tur= 
bans,  fezzes,  flowing  garments  of  white  and  blue 
and  yellow,  all  had  vanished,  and  we  felt  that  we 
were  out  of  the  Orient  and  about  to  enter  a  mod- 
ern city.  At  a  half-way  inn,  where  we  stopped 
to  water  the  horses,  there  was  an  hostler  in  the 
Albanian,  or,  as  it  is  called,  the  Grecian  national 
costume,  wearing  the  fustanella  and  the  short 
jacket;  but  the  stiff  white  petticoat  was  rumpled 
and  soiled,  and  I  fancied  he  was  somewhat  ashamed 
of  the  half-womanly  attire,  and  shrank  from  in- 
spection, like  an  actor  in  harlequin  dress,  surprised 
by  daylight  outside  the  theatre. 

This  sheepish  remnant  of  the  picturesque  could 
not  preserve  for  us  any  illusions ;  the  roses  bloom- 
ing by  the  wayside  we  knew ;  the  birds  singing  in 
the  fields  we  had  heard  before ;  the  commission- 
naire  persisted  in  pointing  out  the  evidences  of  im- 
provement. But  we  burned  with  a  secret  fever; 
we  were  impatient  even  of  the  grateful  avenue  of 
trees  that  hid  what  we  at  every  moment  expected 
to  see.  I  do  not  envy  him  who  without  agitation 
approaches  for  the  first  time,  and  feels  that  he  is 
about  to  look  upon  the  Acropolis !  There  are  three 
supreme  sensations,  not  twice  to  be  experienced, 
for  the  traveler :  when  he  is  about  to  behold  the 
ancient  seats  of  art,  of  discipline,  of  religion,  — 


FIRST   VIEW  OF   THE   ACROPOLIS  497 

Athens,  Rome,  Jerusalem.  But  it  is  not  possible 
for  the  reality  to  equal  the  expectation.  "There!" 
cried  the  commissionnaire,  "is  the  Acropolis!" 
A  small  oblong  hill  lifting  itself  some  three  hun- 
dred and  fifty  feet  above  the  city,  its  sides  upheld 
by  walls,  its  top  shining  with  marble,  an  isolated 
fortress  in  appearance !  The  bulk  of  the  city  lies 
to  the  north  of  the  Acropolis,  and  grows  round  to 
the  east  of  it  along  the  valley  of  the  Ilissus. 

In  five  minutes  more  we  had  caught  a  glimpse 
of  the  new  excavations  of  the  Keramicus,  the  an- 
cient cemetery,  and  of  the  old  walls  on  our  left, 
and  were  driving  up  the  straight  broad  Hermes 
Street  towards  the  palace.  Midway  in  the  centre 
of  the  street  is  an  ancient  Byzantine  church,  which 
we  pass  round.  Hermes  Street  is  intersected  by 
^olus  Street;  these  two  cut  the  city  like  a  Greek 
cross,  and  all  other  streets  flow  into  them.  The 
shops  along  the  way  are  European,  the  people  in 
the  streets  are  European  in  dress;  the  cafes,  the 
tables  in  front  of  hotels  and  restaurants,  with  their 
groups  of  loungers,  suggest  Paris  by  reminding 
one  of  Brussels.  Athens,  built  of  white  stone, 
not  yet  mellowed  by  age,  is  new,  bright,  clean, 
cheerful ;  the  broad  streets  are  in  the  uninteresting 
style  of  the  new  part  of  Munich,  and  due  to  the 
same  Bavarian  influence.  If  Ludvvig  I.  did  not 
succeed  in  making  Munich  look  like  Athens,  Otho 
was  more  fortunate  in  giving  Athens  a  resemblance 
to  Munich.  And  we  were  almost  ashamed  to 
confess  how  pleasant  it  appeared,  after  our  long 
experience  of  the  tumble-down  Orient. 


498  ATHENS 

We  alighted  at  our  hotel  on  the  palace  place, 
ascended  steps  decked  with  flowering  plants,  and 
entered  cool  apartments  looking  upon  the  square, 
which  is  surrounded  with  handsome  buildings, 
planted  with  native  and  exotic  trees,  and  laid  out 
in  walks  and  beds  of  flowers.  To  the  right  rises 
the  plain  facade  of  the  royal  residence,  having  be- 
hind it  a  magnificent  garden,  where  the  pine  rustles 
to  the  palm,  and  a  thousand  statues  revive  the 
dead  mythology;  beyond  rises  the  singular  cone 
of  Lycabettus.  Commendable  foresight  is  plant- 
ing the  principal  streets  with  trees,  the  shade  of 
which  is  much  needed  in  the  long,  dry,  and  parch- 
ing summer. 

From  the  side  windows  we  looked  also  over  the 
roofs  to  the  Acropolis,  which  we  were  impatient 
and  yet  feared  to  approach.  For  myself,  I  felt 
like  deferring  the  decisive  moment,  playing  with 
my  imagination,  lingering  about  among  things  I 
did  not  greatly  care  for,  whetting  impatience  and 
desire  by  restraining  them,  and  postponing  yet  a 
little  the  realization  of  the  dream  of  so  many  years, 
—  to  stand  at  the  centre  of  the  world's  thought, 
at  the  spring  of  its  ideal  beauty.  While  my  com- 
panions rested  from  the  fatigue  of  our  sea  voyage, 
I  went  into  the  street  and  walked  southward  to- 
wards the  Ilissus.  The  air  was  bright  and  spar- 
kling, the  sky  deep  blue  like  that  of  Egypt,  the 
hills  sharp  and  clear  in  every  outline,  and  star- 
tlingly  near ;  the  long  reach  of  Hymettus  wears  ever 
a  purple  robe,  which  nature  has  given  it  in  place 
of  its  pine  forests.  Travelers  from  Constantinople 


THE    QUADRENNIAL   EXPOSITION  499 

complained  of  the  heat,  but  I  found  it  inspiring; 
the  air  had  no  languor  in  it;  this  was  the  very 
joyous  Athens  I  had  hoped  to  see. 

When  you  take  up  the  favorite  uncut  periodical 
of  the  month,  you  like  to  skirmish  about  the  ad- 
vertisements and  tease  yourself  with  dipping  in 
here  and  there  before  you  plunge  into  the  serial 
novel.  It  was  absurd,  but  my  first  visit  in  Athens 
was  to  the  building  of  the  Quadrennial  Exposition 
of  the  Industry  and  Art  of  Greece,  —  a  long, 
painted  wooden  structure,  decked  with  flags,  and 
called,  I  need  not  say,  the  Olympium.  To  enter 
this  imitation  of  a  country  fair  at  home,  was  the 
rudest  shock  one  could  give  to  the  sentiment  of 
antiquity,  and  perhaps  a  dangerous  experiment, 
however  strong  in  the  mind  might  be  the  sub-tone 
of  Acropolis.  The  Greek  gentleman  who  accom- 
panied me  said  that  the  exhibition  was  a  great 
improvement  over  the  one  four  years  before.  It 
was,  in  fact,  a  very  hopeful  sign  of  the  prosperity 
of  the  new  state ;  there  was  a  good  display  of  ce- 
reals and  fruits,  of  silk  and  of  jewelry,  and  various 
work  in  gold  and  silver,  —  the  latter  all  from 
Corfu ;  but  from  the  specimens  of  the  fine  arts,  in 
painting  and  sculpture,  I  think  the  ancient  Greeks 
have  not  much  to  fear  or  to  hope  from  the  mod- 
ern; and  the  books,  in  printing  and  binding,  were 
rude  enough.  But  the  specimens  from  the  mines 
and  quarries  of  Greece  could  not  be  excelled  else- 
where; the  hundred  varieties  of  exquisite  marbles 
detained  us  long;  there  were  some  polished  blocks, 
lovely  in  color,  and  you  might  almost  say  in 


500  ATHENS 

design,  that  you  would  like  to  frame  and  hang  as 
pictures  on  the  wall.  Another  sign  of  the  deca- 
dence of  the  national  costume,  perhaps  more  sig- 
nificant than  its  disappearance  in  the  streets,  was 
its  exhibition  here  upon  lay  figures.  I  saw  a  coun- 
tryman who  wore  it  sneaking  round  one  of  these 
figures,  and  regarding  it  with  the  curiosity  of  a 
savage  who  for  the  first  time  sees  himself  in  a  mir- 
ror. Since  the  revolution  the  Albanian  has  been 
adopted  as  the  Grecian  costume,  in  default  of  any- 
thing more  characteristic,  and  perhaps  because  it 
would  puzzle  one  to  say  of  what  race  the  person 
calling  himself  a  modern  Greek  is.  But  the  ri- 
diculous fustanella  is  nearly  discarded ;  it  is  both 
inconvenient  and  costly ;  to  make  one  of  the  proper 
fullness  requires  forty  yards  of  cotton  cloth;  this 
is  gathered  at  the  waist,  and  hangs  in  broad  pleats 
to  the  knees,  and  it  is  starched  so  stiffly  that  it 
stands  out  like  a  half -open  Chinese  umbrella.  As 
the  garment  cannot  be  worn  when  it  is  the  least 
soiled,  and  must  be  done  up  and  starched  two  or 
three  times  a  week,  the  wearer  finds  it  an  expen- 
sive habit ;  and  in  the  whole  outfit  —  the  jacket  and 
sleeves  may  be  a  reminiscence  of  defensive  armor 
—  he  has  the  appearance  of  a  landsknecht  above 
and  a  ballet-girl  below. 

Nearly  as  rare  in  the  streets  as  this  dress  are 
the  drooping  red  caps  with  tassels  of  blue.  The 
women  of  Athens  whom  we  saw  would  not  take 
a  premium  anywhere  for  beauty ;  but  we  noticed 
here  and  there  one  who  wore  upon  her  dark  locks 
the  long  hanging  red  fez  and  gold  tassel,  who 


THE   MODERN    GREEKS  501 

might  have  attracted  the  eye  of  a  roving  poet,  and 
been  passed  down  to  the  next  age  as  the  Maid  of 
Athens.  The  Athenian  men  of  the  present  are  a 
fine  race ;  we  were  constantly  surprised  by  noble 
forms  and  intelligent  faces.  That  they  are  Greek 
in  feature  or  expression,  as  we  know  the  Greek 
from  coins  and  statuary,  we  could  not  say.  Per- 
haps it  was  only  the  ancient  Lacedemonian  rivalry 
that  prompted  the  remark  of  a  gentleman  in 
Athens,  who  was  born  in  Sparta,  that  there  is  not 
a  drop  of  the  ancient  Athenian  blood  in  Athens. 
There  are  some  patrician  families  in  the  city  who 
claim  this  honorable  descent,  but  it  is  probable 
that  Athens  is  less  Greek  than  any  other  town  in 
the  kingdom;  and  that  if  there  remain  any  Hel- 
lenic descendants,  they  must  be  sought  in  remote 
districts  of  the  Morea.  If  we  trusted  ourselves  to 
decide  by  types  of  face,  we  should  say  that  the 
present  inhabitants  of  Athens  were  of  Northern 
origin,  and  that  their  relation  to  the  Greeks  was 
no  stronger  than  that  of  Englishmen  to  the  ancient 
Britons.  '  That  the  people  who  now  inhabit  Attica 
and  the  Peloponnesus  are  descendants  of  the  Greeks 
whom  the  Romans  conquered,  I  suppose  no  one 
can  successfully  claim;  that  they  are  all  from  the 
Slavonians,  who  so  long  held  and  almost  exclu- 
sively occupied  the  Greek  mainland,  it  is  equally 
difficult  to  prove.  All  we  know  is,  that  the  Greek 
language  has  survived  the  Byzantine  anarchy,  the 
Slavonic  conquest,  the  Frank  occupation ;  and  that 
the  nimble  wit,  the  acquisitiveness  and  inquisitive- 
ness,  the  cunning  and  craft  of  the  modern  Greek, 


502  ATHENS 

seem  to  be  the  perversion  of  the  nobler  and  yet  not 
altogether  dissimilar  qualities  which  made  the  an- 
cient Greeks  the  leaders  of  the  human  race.  And 
those  who  ascribe  the  character  of  a  people  to  cli- 
mate and  geographical  position  may  expect  to  see 
the  mongrel  inheritors  of  the  ancient  soil  moulded, 
by  the  enduring  influences  of  nature,  into  homo- 
geneity, and  reproduce  in  a  measure  a  copy  of  that 
splendid  civilization  of  whose  ruins  they  are  now 
unappreciative  possessors. 

Beyond  the  temporary  Olympium,  the  eye  is 
caught  by  the  Arch  of  Hadrian,  and  fascinated  by 
the  towering  Corinthian  columns  of  the  Olym- 
picum  or  Temple  of  Jupiter.  Against  the  back- 
ground of  Hymettus  and  the  blue  sky  stood  four- 
teen of  these  beautiful  columns,  all  that  remain 
of  the  original  one  hundred  and  twenty-four,  but 
enough  to  give  us  an  impression  of  what  was  one 
of  the  most  stately  buildings  of  antiquity.  This 
temple,  which  was  begun  by  Pisistratus,  was  not 
finished  till  Hadrian's  time,  or  until  the  worship 
of  Jupiter  had  become  cold  and  skeptical.  The 
columns  stand  upon  a  terrace  overlooking  the  bed 
of  the  Ilissus ;  there  coffee  is  served,  and  there  we 
more  than  once  sat  at  sundown,  and  saw  the  vast 
columns  turn  from  rose  to  gray  in  the  fading  light. 

Athens,  like  every  other  city  of  Europe  in  this 
age  of  science  and  Christianity,  was  full  of  sol- 
diers; we  saw  squads  of  them  drilling  here  and 
there,  their  uniforms  sprinkled  the  streets  and  the 
cafes,  and  their  regimental  bands  enlivened  the 
town.  The  Greeks,  like  all  the  rest  of  us,  are  beat- 


THE    ANTIQUITY    DEALERS  503 

ing  their  priming-hooks  into  spears  and  preparing 
for  the  millennium.  If  there  was  not  much  that 
is  peculiar  to  interest  us  in  wandering  about  among 
the  shops,  and  the  so-called,  but  unroofed  and  not 
real  bazaars,  there  was  much  to  astonish  us  in  the 
size  and  growth  of  a  city  of  over  fifty  thousand  in- 
habitants, in  forty  years,  from  the  heap  of  ruins 
and  ashes  which  the  Turks  left  it.  When  the 
venerable  American  missionaries,  Dr.  Hill  and 
his  wife,  came  to  the  city,  they  were  obliged  to 
find  shelter  in  a  portion  of  a  ruined  tower,  and 
they  began  their  labors  literally  in  a  field  of  smok- 
ing desolation.  The  only  attractive  shops  are 
those  of  the  antiquity  dealers,  the  collectors  of 
coins,  vases,  statuettes,  and  figurines.  Of  course 
the  extraordinary  demand  for  these  most  exquisite 
mementos  of  a  race  of  artists  has  created  a  host  of 
imitations,  and  set  an  extravagant  and  fictitious 
price  upon  most  of  the  articles,  a  price  which  the 
professor  who  lets  you  have  a  specimen  as  a  favor, 
or  the  dealer  who  calmly  assumes  that  he  has  gath- 
ered the  last  relics  of  antiquity,  mentions  with 
equal  equanimity.  I  looked  in  the  face  of  a  hand- 
some graybeard,  who  asked  me  two  thousand  francs 
for  a  silver  coin,  which  he  said  was  a  Solon,  to  see 
if  there  was  any  guile  in  his  eye ;  but  there  was 
not.  I  cannot  but  hope  that  this  race  which  has 
learned  to  look  honest  will  some  time  become  so. 

Late  in  the  afternoon  we  walked  around  the 
south  side  of  the  Acropolis,  past  the  ruins  of  the- 
atres that  strew  its  side,  and  ascended  by  the  car- 
riage-road to  the  only  entrance,  at  the  southwest 


504  ATHENS 

end  of  the  hill,  towards  the  Piraeus.  We  pass 
through  a  gate  pierced  in  the  side  wall,  and  come 
to  the  front  of  the  Propylaea,  the  noblest  gateway 
ever  built.  At  the  risk  of  offending  the  traveled, 
I  shall  try  in  a  paragraph  to  put  the  untraveled 
reader  in  possession  of  the  main  features  of  this 
glorious  spot. 

The  Acropolis  is  an  irregular  oblong  hill,  the 
somewhat  uneven  summit  of  which  is  about  eleven 
hundred  feet  long  by  four  hundred  and  fifty  feet 
broad  at  its  widest.  The  hill  is  steep  on  all  sides, 
and  its  final  spring  is  perpendicular  rock,  in  places 
a  hundred  and  fifty  feet  high.  It  is  lowest  at  the 
southwest  end,  where  it  dips  down,  and,  by  a  rocky 
neck,  joins  the  Areopagus,  or  Mars  Hill.  Across 
this  end  is  built  the  Propylaea,  high  with  reference 
to  the  surrounding  country,  and  commanding  the 
view,  but  low  enough  not  to  hide  from  a  little  dis- 
tance the  buildings  on  the  summit.  This  building, 
which  is  of  the  Doric  order,  and  of  pure  Pentelic 
marble,  was  the  pride  of  the  Athenians.  Its  en- 
tire front  is  about  one  hundred  and  seventy  feet; 
this  includes  the  central  portico  (pierced  with  five 
entrances,  the  centre  one  for  carriages)  and  the 
forward  projecting  north  and  south  wings.  In  the 
north  wing  was  the  picture-gallery ;  the  south  wing 
was  never  completed  to  correspond,  but  the  balance 
is  preserved  by  the  little  Temple  of  the  Wingless 
Victory,  which  from  its  ruins  has  been  restored  to 
its  original  form  and  beauty.  The  Propylaea  is 
approached  by  broad  flights  of  marble  steps,  which 
were  defended  by  fortifications  on  the  slope  of  the 


THE    PROPYI^EA  50o 

hill.  The  distant  reader  may  form  a  little  concep- 
tion of  the  original  splendor  of  this  gateway  from 
its  cost,  which  was  nearly  two  and  a  half  millions 
of  dollars,  and  by  remembering  that  it  was  built 
under  the  direction  of  Pericles  at  a  time  when  the 
cost  of  a  building  represented  its  real  value,  and 
not  the  profits  of  city  officials  and  contractors. 

Passing  slowly  between  the  columns,  and  with 
many  a  backward  glance  over  the  historic  land- 
scape, lingering  yet  lest  we  should  abruptly  break 
the  spell,  we  came  into  the  area.  Straight  before 
us,  up  the  red  rock,  ran  the  carriage-road,  seamed 
across  with  chisel-marks  to  prevent  the  horses' 
hoofs  from  slipping,  and  worn  in  deep  ruts  by 
heavy  chariot- wheels.  In  the  field  before  us  a 
mass  of  broken  marble;  on  the  right  the  creamy 
columns  of  the  Parthenon ;  on  the  left  the  irregu- 
lar but  beautiful  Ionic  Erechtheum.  The  reader 
sees  that  the  entrance  was  contrived  so  that  the 
beholder's  first  view  of  the  Parthenon  should  be 
at  the  angle  which  best  exhibits  its  exquisite  pro- 
}x>rtions. 

We  were  alone.  The  soldier  detailed  to  watch 
that  we  did  not  carry  off  any  of  the  columns  sat 
down  upon  a  broken  fragment  by  the  entrance,  and 
let  us  wander  at  our  will.  I  am  Jiot  sure  that 
I  would,  if  I  could,  have  the  temples  restored. 
There  is  an  indescribable  pathos  in  these  fragments 
of  columns  and  architraves  and  walls,  in  these 
broken  sculptures  and  marred  inscriptions,  which 
time  has  softened  to  the  loveliest  tints,  and  in 
these  tottering-  buildings,  which  no  human  skill,  if 


506  ATHENS 

it  could  restore  the  pristine  beauty,  could  reani- 
mate with  the  Greek  idealism. 

And  yet,  as  we  sat  upon  the  western  steps  of  the 
temple  dedicated  to  Pallas  Athene,  I  could  imag- 
ine what  this  area  was,  say  in  the  August  days  of 
the  great  Panathenaic  festival,  when  the  gorgeous 
procession,  which  I  saw  filing  along  the  Via  Sacra, 
returning  from  Eleusis,  swept  up  these  broad  steps, 
garlanded  with  flowers  and  singing  the  hymn  to 
the  protecting  goddess.  This  platform  was  not 
then  a  desolate  stone  heap,  but  peopled  with  almost 
living  statues  in  bronze  and  marble,  the  creations 
of  the  genius  of  Phidias,  of  Praxiteles,  of  Lycius, 
of  Cleoetas,  of  Myron;  there,  between  the  two 
great, temples,  but  overtopping  them  both,  stood 
the  bronze  figure  of  Minerva  Promachus,  cast  by 
Phidias  out  of  the  spoils  of  Marathon,  whose  glit- 
tering helmet  and  spear -point  gladdened  the  re- 
turning mariner  when  far  at  sea,  and  defied  the 
distant  watcher  on  the  Acropolis  of  Corinth.  First 
in  the  procession  come  the  sacrificial  oxen,  and 
then  follow  in  order  a  band  of  virgins,  the  quad- 
riga, each  drawn  by  four  noble  steeds,  the  elite  of 
the  Athenian  youth  on  horseback,  magistrates, 
daughters  of  noble  citizens  bearing  vases  and  pa- 
terae, men  carrying  trays  of  offerings,  flute-players, 
and  the  chorus  singers.  They  pass  around  to  the 
entrance  of  the  Parthenon,  which  is  toward  the 
east,  and  those  who  are  permitted  enter  the  naos 
and  come  into  the  presence  of  the  gold-ivory  statue 
of  Minerva.  The  undraped  portions  of  this  statue 
show  the  ivory;  the  drapery  was  of  solid  gold, 


HISTORIC    ASSOCIATIONS  507 

made  so  that  it  could  be  removed  in  time  of 
danger  from  a  public  enemy.  The  golden  plates 
weighed  ten  thousand  pounds.  This  work  of  Phi- 
dias, since  it  was  celebrated  as  the  perfection  of 
art  by  the  best  judges  of  art,  must  have  been  as 
exquisite  in  its  details  as  it  was  harmonious  in  its 
proportions ;  but  no  artist  of  our  day  would  dare 
to  attempt  to  construct  a  statue  in  that  manner. 
In  its  right,  outstretched  hand  it  held  a  statue  of 
Victory,  four  cubits  high;  and  although  it  was 
erected  nearly  five  hundred  years  before  the  Chris- 
tian era,  we  are  curious  to  notice  the  already  de- 
cided influence  of  Egyptian  ideas  in  the  figure  of 
the  sphinx  surmounting  the  helmet  of  the  goddess. 
The  sun  was  setting  behind  the  island  of  Sala- 
mis.  There  was  a  rosy  glow  011  the  bay  of  Phale- 
rum,  on  the  sea  to  the  south,  on  the  side  of  Hy- 
mettus,  on  the  yellow  columns  of  the  Parthenon, 
on  the  Temple  of  the  Wingless  Victory,  and  on 
the  faces  of  the  ever-youthful  Caryatides  in  the 
portico  of  the  Erechtheum,  who  stand  reverently 
facing  the  Parthenon,  worshiping  now  only  the 
vacant  pedestal  of  Athene  the  Protector.  What 
overpowering  associations  throng  the  mind  as  one 
looks  off  upon  the  crooked  strait  of  Salamis,  down 
upon  the  bare  rock  of  the  Areopagus;  upon  the 
Pnyx  and  the  bcma,  where  we  know  Demosthenes, 
Solon,  Themistocles,  Pericles,  Aristides,  were 
wont  to  address  the  populace  who  crowded  up  from 
this  valley,  the  Agora,  the  tumultuous  market- 
place, to  listen;  upon  the  Museum  Hill,  crowned 
by  the  monument  of  Philopappus,  pierced  by  grot- 


508  ATHENS 

tos,  one  of  which  tradition  calls  the  prison  of  Soc- 
rates, —  the  whole  history  of  Athens  is  in  a  nut- 
shell !  Yet  if  one  were  predetermined  to  despise 
this  mite  of  a  republic  in  the  compass  of  a  quart 
measure,  he  could  not  do  it  here.  A  little  of  Cae- 
sar's dust  outweighs  the  world.  We  are  not  im- 
posed upon  by  names.  It  was,  it  could  only  have 
been,  in  comparison  with  modern  naval  engage- 
ments, a  petty  fight  in  the  narrow  limits  of  that 
strait,  and  yet  neither  the  Persian  soldiers  who 
watched  it  from  the  Acropolis  and  in  terror  saw 
the  ships  of  Xerxes  flying  down  the  bay,  nor  the 
Athenians,  who  had  abandoned  their  citadel  and 
trusted  their  all  to  the  "  wooden  walls  "  of  their 
ships,  could  have  imagined  that  the  result  was 
laden  with  such  consequences.  It  gives  us  pause 
to  think  what  course  all  subsequent  history  would 
have  taken,  what  would  be  the  present  complexion 
of  the  Christian  system  itself,  if  on  that  day  Asi- 
atic barbarism  had  rendered  impossible  the  subse- 
quent development  of  Grecian  art  and  philosophy. 

We  waited  on  the  Acropolis  for  the  night  and 
the  starlight  and  the  thousand  lights  in  the  city 
spread  below,  but  we  did  not  stay  for  the  slow 
coming  of  the  midnight  moon  over  Hymettus. 

On  Sunday  morning  we  worshiped  with  the 
Greeks  in  the  beautiful  Russian  church;  the  inte- 
rior is  small  but  rich,  and  is  like  a  private  parlor; 
there  are  no  seats,  and  the  worshipers  stand  or 
kneel,  while  gilded  and  painted  figures  of  saints 
and  angels  encompass  them.  The  ceremony  is 
simple,  but  impressive.  The  priests  are  in  gor- 


AT   THE   RUSSIAN   CHURCH  509 

geous  robes  of  blue  and  silver;  choir-boys  sing 
soprano,  and  the  bass,  as  it  always  is  in  Russian 
churches,  is  magnificent.  A  lady,  tall,  elegant, 
superb,  in  black  faced  and  trimmed  with  a  stuff  of 
gold,  sweeps  up  to  the  desks,  kisses  the  books  and 
the  crucifix,  and  then  stands  one  side  crossing  her- 
self. We  are  most  of  us  mortal,  and  all,  however 
rich  in  apparel,  poor  sinners  one  day  in  the  week. 
No  one  of  the  worshipers  carries  a  prayer-book. 
There  is  reading  behind  the  screen,  and  presently 
the  priests  bring  out  the  elements  of  communion 
and  exhibit  them,  the  one  carrying  the  bread  in  a 
silver  vessel  on  his  head,  and  the  other  the  wine. 
The  central  doors  are  then  closed  on  the  mysterious 
consecration.  At  the  end  of  the  service  the  holy 
elements  are  brought  out,  the  communicants  press 
up,  kiss  the  cross,  take  a  piece  of  bread,  and  then 
turn  and  salute  their  friends,  and  break  up  in  a 
cheerful  clatter  of  talk.  In  contrast  to  this,  we 
attended  afterwards  the  little  meeting,  in  an  upper 
chamber,  of  the  Greek  converts  of  the  American 
Mission,  and  listened  to  a  sermon  in  Greek  which 
inculcated  the  religion  of  New  England,  — a  gos- 
pel which,  with  the  aid  of  schools,  makes  slow  but 
hopeful  progress  in  the  city  of  the  unknown  God. 
The  longer  one  remains  in  Athens  the  more  he 
will  be  impressed  with  two  things :  the  one  is  the 
perfection  of  the  old  art  and  civilization,  and  what 
must  have  been  the  vivacious,  joyous  life  of  the 
ancient  Athenians,  in  a  climate  so  vital,  when  this 
plain  was  a  garden,  and  these  beautiful  hills  were 
clad  with  forests,  and  the  whispers  of  the  pine 


510  ATHENS 

answered  the  murmurs  of  the  sea;  the  other  is  the 
revival  of  letters  and  architecture  and  culture,  vis- 
ible from  day  to  day,  in  a  progress  as  astonishing 
as  can  be  seen  in  any  Occidental  city.  I  cannot 
undertake  to  describe,  not  even  to  mention,  the 
many  noble  buildings,  either  built  or  in  construc- 
tion, from  the  quarries  of  Pentelicus,  —  the  Uni- 
versity, the  Academy,  the  new  Olympium,  —  all 
the  voluntary  contributions  of  wealthy  Greeks, 
most  of  them  merchants  in  foreign  cities,  whose 
highest  ambition  seems  to  be  to  restore  Athens  to 
something  of  its  former  splendor.  It  is  a  point  of 
honor  with  every  Greek,  in  whatever  foreign  city 
he  may  live  and  die,  to  leave  something  in  his  last 
will  for  the  adornment  or  education  of  the  city  of 
his  patriotic  devotion.  In  this,  if  in  nothing  else, 
they  resemble  the  ancient  patriots  who  thought  no 
sacrifice  too  costly  for  the  republic.  Among  the 
ruins  we  find  no  palaces,  no  sign  that  the  richest 
citizen  used  his  wealth  in  ostentatious  private  man- 
sions. Although  some  of  the  Greek  merchants 
now  build  for  themselves  elegant  villas,  the  next 
generation  will  see  the  evidences  of  their  wealth 
rather  in  the  public  buildings  they  have  erected. 
In  this  little  city  the  University  has  eighty  pro- 
fessors and  over  twelve  hundred  students,  gathered 
from  all  parts  of  Greece ;  there  are  in  the  city  forty 
lady  teachers  with  eight  hundred  female  pupils; 
and  besides  these  there  are  two  gymnasiums  and 
several  graded  schools.  Professors  and  teachers 
are  well  paid,  and  the  schools  are  free,  even  to  the 
use  of  books.  The  means  flow  from  the  same  lib- 


CARYATID    FROM    THE   KRECHTHEUM 


THE   UNIVERSITY  511 

erality,  that  of  the  Greek  merchants,  who  are  con- 
tinually leaving  money  for  new  educational  foun- 
dations. There  is  but  one  shadow  upon  this  hope- 
ful picture,  and  that  is  the  bigotry  of  the  Greek 
church,  to  which  the  government  yields.  I  do  not 
now  speak  of  the  former  persecutions  suffered  by 
the  Protestant  missionaries,  but  recently  the  schools 
for  girls  opened  by  Protestants,  and  which  have 
been  of  the  highest  service  in  the  education  of 
women,  have  been  obliged  to  close  or  else  "con- 
form "  to  the  Greek  religion  and  admit  priestly 
teachers.  At  the  time  of  our  visit,  one  of  the  best 
of  them,  that  of  Miss  Kyle  of  New  York,  was  only 
tolerated  from  week  to  week  under  perpetual  warn- 
ings, and  liable  at  any  moment  to  be  suppressed 
by  the  police.  This  narrow  policy  is  a  disgrace  to 
the  government,  and  if  it  is  continued  must  incline 
the  world  to  hope  that  the  Greeks  will  never  dis- 
place the  Moslems  in  Constantinople. 

In  the  front  of  the  University  stands  a  very 
good  statue  of  the  scholar-patriot  Korais,  and  in 
the  library  we  saw  the  busts  of  other  distinguished 
natives  and  foreigners.  The  library,  which  is 
every  day  enriched  by  private  gifts,  boasts  already 
over  one  hundred  and  thirty  thousand  volumes. 
As  we  walked  throuffh  the  rooms,  the  director  said 

O 

that  the  University  had  no  bust  of  an  American, 
though  it  had  often  been  promised  one.  I  sug- 
gested one  of  Lincoln.  No,  he  wanted  Washing- 
ton; he  said  he  cared  to  have  no  other.  I  did  not 
tell  him  that  Washington  was  one  of  the  heroes 
of  our  mythic  period,  that  we  had  filled  up  a  toler- 


512  ATHENS 

ably  large  pantheon  since  then,  and  that  a  century 
in  America  was  as  good  as  a  thousand  years  in 
Byzantium.  But  I  fell  into  something  of  a  his- 
toric revery  over  the  apparent  fact  that  America 
is  as  yet  to  Greece  nothing  but  the  land  of  Wash- 
ington, and  I  rather  liked  the  old-fashioned  no- 
tion, and  felt  sure  that  there  must  be  somewhere 
in  the  United  States  an  antiquated  and  rich  patriot 
who  remembered  Washington  and  would  like  to 
send  a  marble  portrait  of  our  one  great  man  to  the 
University  of  Athens. 


XXIX 

ELEUSIS,  PLATO'S  ACADEME,   ETC. 


HERE  was  a  nightingale  who  sang 
and  sobbed  all  night  in  the  garden  be- 
fore the  hotel,  and  only  ceased  her 
plaintive  reminiscence  of  Athenian 
song  and  sorrow  with  the  red  dawn.  But  this  is 
a  sad  world  of  contrasts.  Called  upon  the  balcony 
at  midnight  by  her  wild  notes,  I  saw,  —  how  can 
I  ever  say  it?  —  upon  the  balcony  below,  a  white 
figure  advance,  and  with  a  tragic  movement  of 
haste,  if  not  of  rage,  draw  his  garment  of  the  night 
over  his  head  and  shake  it  out  over  the  public 
square ;  and  I  knew  —  for  the  kingdom  of  know- 
ledge comes  by  experience  as  well  as  by  observa- 
tion —  that  the  lively  flea  was  as  wakeful  in  Greece 
as  the  nightingale. 

In  the  morning  the  north  wind  arose,  —  it  seems 
to  blow  constantly  from  Boeotia  at  this  time  of  the 
year,  —  but  the  day  was  bright  and  sparkling,  and 
we  took  carriage  for  Eleusis.  It  might  have  been 
on  such  a  morning,  for  the  ancient  Athenians  al- 
ways anticipated  the  dawn  in  their  festivals,  that 
the  Panathenaic  processions  moved  along  this  very 
Via  Sacra  to  celebrate  the  Mysteries  of  Ceres  at 


614  ELEUSIS 

Eleusis.  All  the  hills  stood  in  clear  outline,  — • 
long  Pentelicus  and  the  wavy  lines  of  Parnes  and 
Corydallus;  we  drove  over  the  lovely  and  fertile 
plain,  amid  the  olive-orchards  of  the  Kephissus, 
and  up  the  stony  slope  to  the  narrowing  Pass  of 
Daphne,  a  defile  in  Mt.  ^Egaleos;  but  we  sought 
in  vain  the  laurel  grove,  or  a  single  specimen  of 
that  tree  whose  twisted  trunk  and  outstretched 
arms  express  the  struggle  of  vanishing  humanity. 
Passing  on  our  right  the  Chapel  of  St.  Elias,  on 
a  commanding  eminence,  and  traversing  the  level 
plateau  of  the  rocky  gorge,  we  alighted  at  the 
Monastery  of  Daphne,  whose  half -ruined  cloister 
and  chapel  occupy  the  site  of  a  temple  of  Apollo. 
We  sat  for  half  an  hour  in  its  quiet,  walled  church- 
yard, carpeted  with  poppies  and  tender  flowers  of 
spring,  amid  the  remains  of  old  columns  and  frag- 
ments of  white  marble,  sparkling  amid  the  green 
grass  and  blue  violets,  and  looked  upon  the  blue 
bay  of  Eleusis  and  Salamis,  and  the  heights  of 
Megara  beyond.  Surely  nature  has  a  tenderness 
for  such  a  spot;  and  I  fancied  that  even  the  old 
dame  who  unlocked  for  us  the  chapel  and  its  cheap 
treasures  showed  us  with  some  interest,  in  a  carv- 
ing here  and  a  capital  there,  the  relics  of  a  former 
religion,  and  perhaps  mingled  with  her  adoration 
of  the  Virgin  and  the  bambino  a  lurking  regard 
for  Venus  and  Apollo.  A  mile  beyond,  at  the 
foot  of  a  rocky  precipice,  are  pointed  out  the  foun- 
dations of  a  temple  of  Venus,  where  the  handbook 
assured  us  doves  had  been  found  carved  in  white 
marble;  none  were  left,  however,  for  us,  and  we 


AN    ENCHANTING    VIEW  515 


contented  ourselves  with  reading  on  the  rock 
Aphrodite,  and  making  a  vain  effort  to  recall  life 
to  this  sterile  region. 

Enchanting  was  the  view  as  we  drove  down  the 
opening  pass  to  the  bay,  which  spreads  out  a  broad 
sheet,  completely  land-locked  by  the  irregular  bulk 
of  Salamis  Island.  When  we  emerged  through 
the  defile  we  turned  away  from  the  narrow  strait 
where  the  battle  was  fought,  and  from  the  "rocky 
brow  "  on  which  Xerxes  sat,  a  crowned  spectator 
of  his  ruin,  and  swept  around  the  circular  shore, 
past  the  Rheiti,  or  salt-springs,  —  clear,  greenish 
pools,  —  and  over  the  level  Thriasiaii  Plain.  The 
bay  of  Eleusis,  guarded  by  the  lofty  amphitheatre 
of  mountains,  the  curving  sweep  of  JEgaleos  and 
Kithaeron,  and  by  Salamis,  is  like  a  lovely  lake, 
and  if  anywhere  on  earth  there  could  be  peace, 
you  would  say  it  would  be  on  its  sunny  and  se- 
cluded shores.  Salamis  appears  only  a  bare  and 
rocky  island,  but  the  vine  still  flourishes  in  the 
scant  soil,  and  from  its  wild-flowers  the  descendants 
of  the  Attic  bees  make  honey  as  famous  as  that  of 
two  thousand  years  ago. 

Across  the  bay,  upon  a  jutting  rocky  point, 
above  which  rises  the  crown  of  its  Acropolis,  lies  the 
straggling,  miserable  village  of  Eleusis.  Our  first 
note  of  approach  to  it  was  an  ancient  pavement, 
and  a  few  indistinguishable  fragments  of  walls 
and  columns.  In  a  shallow  stream  which  ran  over 
the  stones,  the  women  of  the  town  were  washing 
clothes;  and  throngs  of  girls  were  filling  their  pails 
of  brass  at  an  old  well,  as  of  old  at  the  same  place 


516  ELEUSIS 

did  the  daughters  of  Keleos.  Shriller  tones  and 
laughter  mingled  with  their  incessant  chatter  as 
we  approached,  and,  we  thought,  —  perhaps  it  was 
imagination,  —  a  little  wild  defiance  and  dislike. 
I  had  noticed  already  in  Athens,  and  again  here, 
the  extraordinary  rapidity  with  which  the  Greeks 
in  conversation  exchange  words;  I  think  they  are 
the  fastest  talkers  in  the  world.  And  the  Greek 
has  a  hard,  sharp,  ringing,  metallic  sound;  it  is 
staccato.  You  can  see  how  easily  Aristophanes 
imitated  the  brittle -brattle  of  frogs.  I  have  heard 
two  women  whose  rapid,  incessant  cackle  sounded 
exactly  like  the  conversation  of  hens.  The  sculp- 
tor need  not  go  further  than  these  nut-brown 
maids  for  classic  forms;  the  rounded  limbs,  the 
generous  bust,  the  symmetrical  waist,  which  fash- 
ion has  not  made  an  hour-glass  to  mark  the  flight 
of  time  and  health.  The  mothers  of  heroes  were 
of  this  mould ;  although  I  will  not  say  that  some  of 
them  were  not  a  trifle  stout  for  grace,  and  that 
their  well-formed  faces  would  not  have  been  im- 
proved by  the  interior  light  of  a  little  culture. 
Their  simple  dress  was  a  white,  short  chemise,  that 
left  the  legs  bare,  a  heavy  and  worked  tunic,  like 
that  worn  by  men,  and  a  colored  kerchief  tied 
about  the  head.  Many  of  the  men  of  the  vil- 
lage wore  the  fustanella  and  the  full  Albanian 
costume. 

The  Temple  of  Ceres  lies  at  the  foot  of  the  hill ; 
only  a  little  portion  of  its  vast  extent  has  been  re- 
lieved of  the  superincumbent,  accumulated  soil, 
and  in  fact  its  excavation  is  difficult,  because  the 


THE   TEMPLE    OF    CERES  517 

village  is  built  over  the  greater  part  of  it.  What 
we  saw  was  only  a  confused  heap  of  marble, 
some  pieces  finely  carved,  arches,  capitals,  and 
shattered  columns.  The  Greek  government,  which 
is  earnestly  caring  for  the  remains  of  antiquity 
and  diligently  collecting  everything  for  the  Na- 
tional Musuem,  down  to  broken  toes  and  fingers, 
has  stationed  a  keeper  over  the  ruins;  and  he 
showed  us,  in  a  wooden  shanty,  the  interesting 
fragments  of  statues  which  had  been  found  in  the 
excavation.  I  coveted  a  little  hand,  plump,  with 
tapering  fingers,  which  the  conservator  permitted 
us  to  hold,  —  a  slight  but  a  most  suggestive  me- 
mento of  the  breeding  and  beauty  of  the  lady  who 
was  the  sculptor's  model;  and  it  did  not  so  much 
seem  a  dead  hand  stretched  out  to  us  from  the 
past,  as  a  living  thing  which  returned  our  furtive 
pressure. 

We  climbed  up  the  hill  where  the  fortress  of  the 
Acropolis  stood,  and  where  there  is  now  a  little 
chapel.  Every  Grecian  city  seems  to  have  had  its 
Acropolis,  the  first  nucleus  of  the  rude  tribe  which 
it  fortified  against  incursion,  and  the  subsequent 
site  of  temples  to  the  gods.  The  traveler  will  find 
these  steep  hills,  rising  out  of  plains,  everywhere 
from  Ephesus  to  Argos,  and  will  almost  conclude 
that  Nature  had  consciously  adapted  herself  to  the 
wants  of  the  aboriginal  occupants.  It  is  well 
worth  ascending  this  summit  to  get  the  fine  view 
of  plain  and  bay,  of  Mt.  Kerata  and  its  double 
peaks,  and  the  road  that  pierces  the  pass  of  Ki- 
than'on,  and  leads  to  the  field  of  Plata?a  and  the 
remains  of  Thebes. 


518  PLATO'S  ACADEME 

In  a  little  wine-shop,  near  the  ruins,  protected 
from  the  wind  and  the  importunate  swarms  of 
children,  we  ate  our  lunch,  and  tried  to  impress 
ourselves  with  the  knowledge  that  JEschylus  was* 
born  in  Eleusis ;  and  to  imagine  the  nature  of  the 
Eleusinian  mysteries,  the  concealed  representa- 
tions by  which  the  ancients  attempted  to  symbo- 
lize, in  the  myths  of  Ceres  and  Proserpine,  the 
primal  forces  of  nature,  perhaps  the  dim  sugges- 
tions of  immortality,  —  a  secret  not  to  be  shared 
by  the  vulgar,  —  borrowed  from  the  deep  wisdom 
of  the  Egyptians. 

The  children  of  Eleusis  deserve  more  space  than 
I  can  afford  them,  since  they  devoted  their  entire 
time  to  our  annoyance.  They  are  handsome  ras- 
cals, and  there  were  enough  of  them,  if  they  had 
been  sufficiently  clothed,  to  form  a  large  Sunday- 
school.  When  we  sat  down  in  the  ruins  and  tried 
to  meditate  on  Ceres,  they  swarmed  about  us, 
capering  and  yelling  incessantly,  and  when  I  made 
a  charge  upon  them  they  scattered  over  the  rocks 
and  saluted  us  with  stones.  But  I  find  that  at  this 
distance  I  liave  nothing  against  them ;  I  recall  only 
their  beauty  and  vivacity,  and  if  they  were  the 
worst  children  that  ever  tormented  travelers,  I  re- 
flect, yes,  but  they  were  Greeks,  and  the  gods  loved 
their  grandmothers.  One  slender,  liquid  -  eyed, 
slim-shanked  girl  offered  me  a  silver  coin.  I  saw 
that  it  was  a  beautiful  Athenian  piece  of  the  time 
of  Pericles,  and  after  some  bargaining  I  bought  it 
of  her  for  a  reasonable  price.  But  as  we  moved 
away  to  our  carriage,  I  was  followed  by  the  men 


SCATTERED    REMAINS.  ~>19 

and  women  of  the  settlement,  who  demanded  it 
back.  They  looked  murder  and  talked  Greek.  I 
inquired  how  much  they  wanted.  Fifty  francs! 
But  that  is  twice  as  much  as  it  is  worth  in  Athens ; 
and  the  coin  was  surrendered.  All  through  the 
country,  the  peasants  have  a  most  exaggerated 
notion  of  the  value  of  anything  antique. 

We  returned  through  the  pass  of  Daphne  and 
by  the  site  of  the  academic  grove  of  Plato,  through 
olive-groves  and  gardens  of  pomegranates  in  scar- 
let bloom,  quinces,  roses,  and  jasmines,  the  air 
sweet  and  delightful.  Perhaps  nowhere  else  can 
the  traveler  so  enter  into  the  pure  spirit  of  Attic 
thought  and  feeling  as  among  these  scattered  re- 
mains that  scholars  have  agreed  to  call  the  ruins  of 
Plato's  Academe.  We  turned  through  a  lane  into 
the  garden  of  a  farm-house,  watered  by  a  branch 
rivulet  of  the  Kephissus.  What  we  saw  was  not 
much,  —  some  marble  columns  under  a  lovely 
cypress-grove,  some  fragments  of  antique  carving 
built  into  a  wall;  but  we  saw  it  as  it  were  pri- 
vately and  with  a  feeling  of  the  presence  of  the 
mighty  shade.  And  then,  under  a  row  of  young 
plane-trees,  by  the  meagre  stream,  we  reclined  on 
ripe  wheat-straw,  in  full  sight  of  the  Acropolis, 
—  perhaps  the  most  poetic  view  of  that  magnetic 
hill.  So  Plato  saw  it  as  he  strolled  along  this  bank 
and  listened  to  the  wisdom  of  his  master,  Socrates, 
or,  pacing  the  colonnade  of  the  Academe,  medi- 
tated the  Republic.  Here  indeed  Aristotle  may 
have  lain  and  woven  that  subtle  web  of  metaphys- 
ics which  no  subsequent  system  of  thought  or  reli- 


520  PLATO'S  ACADEME 

gion  has  been  able  to  disregard.  The  centuries-old 
wind  blew  strong  and  fresh  through  the  trees,  and 
the  scent  of  flowers  and  odorous  shrubs,  the  mur- 
mur of  the  leaves,  the  unchanged  blue  vault  of 
heaven,  the  near  hill  of  the  sacred  Colonus,  cele- 
brated by  Sophocles  as  the  scene  of  the  death  of 
QEdipus,  all  conspired  to  flood  us  with  the  poetic- 
past.  What  intimations  of  immortality  do  we 
need,  since  the  spell  of  genius  is  so  deathless  ? 

After  dinner  we  laboriously,  by  a  zigzag  path, 
climbed  the  sharp  cone  of  Lycabettus,  whose  six 
hundred  and  fifty  feet  of  height  commands  the 
whole  region.  The  rock  summit  has  just  room 
enough  for  a  tiny  chapel,  called  of  St.  George, 
and  a  narrow  platform  in  front,  where  we  sat  in 
the  shelter  of  the  building  and  feasted  upon  the 
prospect.  At  sunset  it  is  a  marvelous  view,  — 
all  Athens  and  its  plain,  the  bays,  Salamis  and 
the  strait  of  the  battle,  Aero-Corinth;  Megara, 
Hymettus,  Pentelicus,  KithaBi-on. 

When,  in  descending,  we  had  nearly  reached 
the  foot  on  the  west  side,  we  heard  the  violent 
ringing  of  a  bell  high  above  us,  and,  turning  about, 
saw  what  seemed  to  be  a  chapel  under  the  north- 
west edge  of  the  rock  upon  which  we  had  lately 
stood.  Bandits  in  laced  leggings  and  embroidered 
jackets,  chattering  girls  in  short  skirts  and  gay 
kerchiefs,  were  descending  the  wandering  path, 
and  the  clamor  of  the  bell  piqued  our  curiosity 
to  turn  and  ascend.  When  we  reached  our  goal, 
the  affair  seemed  to  be  pretty  much  all  bell,  and 


,    . 


A  MOUNTAIN  CHAPEL  521 

nobody  but  a  boy  in  the  lusty  exuberance  of  youth 
could  have  made  so  much  noise  by  the  swinging 
of  a  single  clapper.  In  a  niche  or  rather  cleft  in 
the  rock  was  a  pent-roofed  bell-tower,  and  a  boy, 
whose  piety  seemed  inspired  by  the  Devil,  was  haul- 
ing the  rope  and  sending  the  sonorous  metal  over 
and  over  on  its  axis.  In  front  of  the  bell  is  a  nar- 
row terrace,  sufficient,  however,  to  support  three 
fig-trees,  under  which  were  tables  and  benches, 
and  upon  the  low  terrace-wall  were  planted  half  a 
dozen  large  and  differently  colored  national  ban- 
ners. A  hole  in  the  rock  was  utilized  as  a  fire- 
place, and  from  a  pot  over  the  coals  came  the  fumes 
of  coffee.  Upon  this  perch  of  a  terrace  people 
sat  sipping  coffee  and  looking  down  upon  the  city, 
whose  evening  lights  were  just  beginning  to  twin- 
kle here  and  there.  Behind  the  belfry  is  a  chapel, 
perhaps  ten  feet  by  twelve,  partly  a  natural  grotto 
and  partly  built  of  rough  stones ;  it  was  brilliantly 
lighted  with  tapers,  and  hung  with  quaint  pictures. 
At  the  entrance,  which  is  a  door  cut  in  the  rock, 
stood  a  Greek  priest  and  an  official  in  uniform 
selling  wax-tapers,  and  raking  in  the  leptas  of  the 
devout.  We  threw  down  some  coppers,  declined 
the  tapers,  and  walked  in.  The  adytum  of  the 
priest  was  wholly  in  the  solid  rock.  There  seemed 
to  be  no  service ;  but  the  women  and  children  stood 
and  crossed  themselves,  and  passionately  kissed 
the  poor  pictures  on  the  walls.  Yet  there  was  no- 
thing exclusive  or  pharisaic  in  the  worshipers,-  for 
priest  and  people  showed  us  friendly  faces,  and 
cordially  returned  our  greetings.  The  whole  rock 


522  MT.    PENTELICUS 

quivered  with  the  clang  of  the  bell,  for  the  boy  at 
the  rope  leaped  at  his  task,  and  with  ever-increas- 
ing fury  summoned  the  sinful  world  below  to 
prayer.  Young  ladies  with  their  gallants  came 
and  went ;  and  whenever  there  was  any  slacking  of 
stragglers  up  the  hillside  the  bell  clamored  more 
importunately. 

As  dusk  crept  on,  torches  were  set  along  the 
wall  of  the  terrace,  and  as  we  went  down  the  hill 
they  shone  on  the  red  and  blue  flags  and  the  white 
belfry,  and  illuminated  the  black  mass  of  over- 
hanging rock  with  a  red  glow.  There  is  time  for 
religion  in  out-of-the-way  places  here,  and  it  is 
rendered  picturesque,  and  even  easy  and  enjoy- 
able, by  the  aid  of  coffee  and  charming  scenery. 
When  we  reached  the  level  of  the  town,  the  lights 
still  glowed  high  up  in  the  recess  of  the  rocks,  girls 
were  laughing  and  chattering  as  they  stumbled 
down  the  steep,  and  the  wild  bell  still  rang.  How 
easy  it  is  to  be  good  in  Greece ! 

One  day  we  stole  a  march  on  Marathon,  and 
shared  the  glory  of  those  who  say  they  have  seen 
it,  without  incurring  the  fatigue  of  a  journey  there. 
We  ascended  Mt.  Pentelicus.  Hymettus  and  Pen- 
telicus  are  about  the  same  height,  —  thirty-five 
hundred  feet,  —  but  the  latter,  ten  miles  to  the 
northeast  of  Athens,  commands  every  foot  of  the 
Attic  territory ;  if  one  should  sit  on  its  summit  and 
read  a  history  of  the  little  state,  he  would  need 
no  map.  We  were  away  at  half  past  five  in  the 
morning,  in  order  to  anticipate,  if  possible,  the  ris- 
ing of  the  daily  wind.  As  we  ascended,  we  had 


A    SUMMER   RESORT  523 

on  our  left,  at  the  foot  of  the  mountain,  the  village 
of  Kephisia,  now,  as  in  the  days  of  Herocles  Atti- 
cus,  the  summer  resort  of  wealthy  Athenians,  who 
find  in  its  fountains  the  sources  of  the  Kephissus, 
and  in  its  groves  relief  from  the  heat  and  glare  of 
the  scorched  Athenian  plain.  Half-way  we  halted 
at  a  monastery,  left  our  carriage,  and  the  ladies 
mounted  horses.  There  is  a  handsome  church 
here,  and  the  situation  is  picturesque  and  com- 
mands a  wide  view  of  the  plain  and  the  rugged 
north  slope  of  Hymettus,  but  I  could  not  learn 
that  the  monastery  was  in  an  active  state;  it  is 
only  a  hive  of  drones  which  consumes  the  honey 
produced  by  the  working-bees  from  the  wild  thyme 
of  the  neighboring  mountain.  The  place,  how- 
ever, is  a  great  resort  of  parties  of  pleasure,  who 
picnic  under  the  grove  of  magnificent  forest-trees, 
and  once  a  year  the  king  and  queen  come  hither  to 
see  the  youths  and  maidens  dance  on  the  green- 
sward. 

Up  to  the  highest  quarries  the  road  is  steep  and 
strewn  with  broken  marble,  and  after  that  there 
is  an  hour's  scramble  through  bushes  and  over  a 
rocky  path.  We  rested  in  a  large  grotto  near  the 
principal  of  the  ancient  quarries;  it  was  the  sleep- 
ing-place of  the  workmen,  subsequently  a  Chris- 
tian church,  and  then,  and  not  long  ago,  a  haunt 
and  home  of  brigands.  Here  we  found  a  party  of 
four  fellows,  half  clad  in  sheep-skins,  playing 
cards,  who  seemed  to  be  waiting  our  arrival;  but 
they  were  entirely  civil,  and  I  presume  were  only 
shepherds,  whatever  they  may  have  been  formerly. 


524  PENTELIC   MARBLE 

From  these  quarries  was  hewn  the  marble  for  the 
Temple  of  Theseus,  the  Parthenon,  the  Propylsea, 
the  theatres,  and  other  public  buildings,  to  which 
age  has  now  given  a  soft  and  creamy  tone ;  the 
Pentelic  marble  must  have  been  too  brilliant  for 
the  eye,  and  its  dazzling  lustre  was  no  doubt  soft- 
ened by  the  judicious  use  of  color.  Fragments 
which  we  broke  off  had  the  sparkle  and  crystal- 
line grain  of  loaf-sugar,  and  if  they  were  placed 
upon  the  table  one  would  unhesitatingly  take  them 
to  sweeten  his  tea.  The  whole  mountain -side  is 
overgrown  with  laurel,  and  we  found  wild-flowers 
all  the  way  to  the  summit.  Amid  the  rocks  of  the 
higher  slopes,  little  shepherd-boys,  carrying  the 
traditional  crooks,  were  guarding  flocks  of  black 
and  white  goats,  and  invariably,  as  we  passed, 
these  animals  scampered  off  and  perched  them- 
selves upon  sharp  rocks  in  a  photographic  pose. 

Early  as  we  were,  the  wind  had  risen  before  us, 
and  when  we  reached  the  bare  back  of  the  summit 
it  blew  so  strongly  that  we  could  with  difficulty 
keep  our  feet,  and  gladly  took  refuge  in  a  sort  of 
stone  corral,  which  had  been  a  camp  and  lookout 
of  brigands.  From  this  commanding  point  they 
spied  both  their  victims  and  pursuers.  Our  guide 
went  into  the  details  of  the  capture  of  the  party  of 
Englishmen  who  spent  a  night  here,  and  pointed 
out  to  us  the  several  hiding-places  in  the  surround- 
ing country  to  which  they  were  successively 
dragged.  But  my  attention  was  not  upon  this  ex- 
ploit. We  looked  almost  directly  down  upon  Ma- 
rathon. There  is  the  bay  and  the  curving  sandy 


MARATHON  525 

shore  where  the  Persian  galleys  landed ;  here  upon 
a  spur,  jutting  out  from  the  hill,  the  Athenians 
formed  before  they  encountered  the  host  in  the 
plain,  and  there  —  alas!  it  was  hidden  by  a  hill  — 
is  the  mound  where  the  one  hundred  and  ninety - 
two  Athenian  dead  are  buried.  It  is  only  a  small 
field,  perhaps  six  miles  along  the  shore  and  a  mile 
and  a  half  deep,  and  there  is  a  considerable  marsh 
on  the  north  and  a  small  one  at  the  south  end.  The 
victory  at  so  little  cost,  of  ten  thousand  over  a 
hundred  thousand,  is  partially  explained  by  the 
nature  of  the  ground ;  the  Persians  had  not  room 
enough  to  manoeuvre,  and  must  have  been  thrown 
into  confusion  on  the  skirts  of  the  northern  swamp, 
and  if  over  six  thousand  of  them  were  slain,  they 
must  have  been  killed  on  the  shore  in  the  panic  of 
their  embarkation.  But  still  the  shore  is  broad, 
level,  and  firm,  and  the  Greeks  must  have  been 
convinced  that  the  gods  themselves  terrified  the 
hearts  of  the  barbarians,  and  enabled  them  to  dis- 
comfit a  host  which  had  chosen  this  plain  as  the 
most  feasible  in  all  Attica  for  the  action  of  cavalry. 
A  sea-haze  lay  upon  the  strait  of  Euripus  and 
upon  Euboea,  and  nearly  hid  from  our  sight  the 
forms  of  the  Cyclades;  but  away  in  the  northwest 
were  snow  peaks,  which  the  guide  said  were  the 
heights  of  Parnassus  above  Delphi.  In  the  world 
there  can  be  few  prospects  so  magnificent  as  this, 
and  none  more  inspiring  to  the  imagination.  No 
one  can  properly  appreciate  the  Greek  literature 
or  art  who  has  not  looked  upon  the  Greek  nature 
which  seems  to  have  inspired  both. 


526  THE    TEMPLE    OF   THESEUS 

Nothing  now  remains  of  the  monuments  and 
temples  which  the  pride  and  piety  of  the  Athenians 
erected  upon  the  field  of  Marathon.  The  visitor 
at  the  Arsenal  of  Venice  remembers  the  clumsy 
lion  which  is  said  to  have  stood  011  this  plain,  and 
in  the  Temple  of  Theseus,  at  Athens,  he  may  see 
a  slab  which  was  found  in  this  meadow ;  on  it  is 
cut  in  very  low  relief  the  figure  of  a  soldier,  but  if 
the  work  is  Greek,  the  style  of  treatment  is  Assy- 
rian. The  Temple  of  Theseus,  which  occupies  an 
elevation  above  the  city  and  west  of  the  Areopagus, 
is  the  best-preserved  monument  of  Grecian  anti- 
quity, and  if  it  were  the  only  one,  Athens  would 
still  be  worthy  of  a  pilgrimage  from  the  ends  of 
the  earth.  Behind  it  is  a  level  esplanade,  used  as 
a  drill-ground,  upon  one  side  of  which  have  been 
gathered  some  relics  of  ancient  buildings  and  sculp- 
tures ;  seated  there  in  an  ancient  marble  chair,  we 
never  wearied  of  studying  the  beautiful  proportions 
of  this  temple,  which  scarcely  suffers  by  compari- 
son with  the  Parthenon  or  that  at  Paestum.  In  its 
construction  the  same  subtle  secret  of  curved  lines 
and  inclined  verticals  was  known,  a  secret  which 
increases  its  apparent  size  and  satisfies  the  eye  witli 
harmony. 

While  we  were  in  Athens  the  antiquarians  were 
excited  by  the  daily  discoveries  in  the  excavations 
at  the  Keramicus  (the  field  where  the  Athenian 
potters  worked).  Through  the  portion  of  this  dis- 
trict otitside  the  gate  Dipylum  ran  two  streets, 
which  were  lined  with  tombs;  one  ran  to  the  Aca- 
deme, the  other  was  the  sacred  way  to  Eleusis. 


THE  MUSEUM  527 

The  excavations  have  disclosed  many  tombs  and 
lovely  groups  of  funereal  sculpture,  some  of  which 
are  in  situ,  but  many  have  been  removed  to  the 
new  Museum.  The  favorite  device  is  the  seated 
figure  of  the  one  about  to  die,  who  in  this  position 
of  dignity  takes  leave  of  those  most  loved;  per- 
haps it  is  a  wife,  a  husband,  a  lovely  daughter,  a 
handsome  boy,  who  calmly  awaits  the  inevitable 
moment,  while  the  relatives  fondly  look  or  half 
avert  their  sorrowful  faces.  In  all  sculpture  I 
know  nothing  so  touching  as  these  family  farewells. 
I  obtained  from  them  a  new  impression  of  the 
Greek  dignity  and  tenderness,  of  the  simplicity 
and  nobility  of  their  domestic  life. 

The  Museum,  which  was  unarranged,  is  chiefly 
one  of  fragments,  but  what  I  saw  there  and  else- 
where scattered  about  the  town  gave  me  a  finer 
conception  of  the  spirit  of  the  ancient  art  than  all 
the  more  perfect  remains  in  Europe  put  together; 
and  it  seems  to  me  that  nowhere  except  in  Athens 
is  it  possible  to  attain  a  comprehension  of  its  depth 
and  loveliness.  Something,  1  know,  is  due  to  the 
(jeniuK  /or/,  but  you  come  to  the  knowledge  that 
the  entire  life,  even  the  commonest,  was  pervaded 
by  something  that  has  gone  from  modern  art.  In 
the  Museum  we  saw  a  lovely  statue  of  Isis,  a  noble 
one  of  Patroclus,  fine  ones  of  athletes,  and  also, 
showing  the  intercourse  with  Egypt,  several  fig- 
ures holding  the  sacred  x!*tt'inn,  and  one  of  Ra- 
meses  II.  But  it  is  the  humbler  and  funereal  art 
that  gives  one  a  new  conception  of  the  Greek  grace, 
tenderness,  and  sensibility.  I  have  spoken  of  the 


528  GREEK   SENTIMENT 

sweet  dignity,  the  high-born  grace,  that  accepted 
death  with  lofty  resignation,  and  yet  not  with  sto- 
ical indifference,  of  some  of  the  sepulchral  groups. 
There  was  even  more  poetry  in  some  that  are  sim- 
pler. Upon  one  slab  was  carved  a  figure,  pen- 
sive, alone,  wrapping  his  drapery  about  him  and 
stepping  into  the  silent  land,  on  that  awful  journey 
that  admits  of  no  companion.  On  another,  which 
was  also  without  inscription,  a  solitary  figure  sat 
in  one  corner;  he  had  removed  helmet  and  shield, 
and  placed  them  on  the  ground  behind  him ;  a  line 
upon  the  stone  indicated  the  boundary  of  the  in- 
visible world,  and,  with  a  sad  contemplation,  the 
eyes  of  the  soldier  were  fixed  upon  that  unknown 
region  into  which  he  was  about  to  descend. 

Scarcely  a  day  passed  that  we  did  not  ascend 
the  Acropolis;  and  again  and  again  we  traversed 
the  Areopagus,  the  Pnyx,  the  Museum  hills. 
From  the  valley  of  the  Agora  stone  steps  lead  up 
the  Areopagus  to  a  bench  cut  in  the  rock.  Upon 
this  open  summit  the  Areopagite  Council  held,  in 
the  open  air,  its  solemn  sessions ;  here  it  sat,  it  is 
said,  at  night  and  in  the  dark,  that  no  face  of  wit- 
ness or  criminal,  or  gesture  of  advocate,  should  in- 
fluence the  justice  of  its  decisions.  Dedicated  to 
divine  justice,  it  was  the  most  sacred  and  awful 
place  in  Athens;  in  a  cavern  underneath  it  was  the 
sanctuary  of  the  dread  Erinnyes,  the  avenging 
Furies,  whom  a  later  superstition  represented  with 
snakes  twisted  in  their  hair;  whatever  the  gay 
frivolity  of  the  city,  this  spot  was  silent,  and  re- 
spected as  the  dread  seat  of  judicature  of  the  high- 


THE   AREOPAGUS  529 

est  causes  of  religion  or  of  politics.  To  us,  Mars 
Hill  is  chiefly  associated  with  the  name  of  St. 
Paul;  and  I  do  not  suppose  it  matters  much 
whether  he  spoke  to  the  men  of  Athens  in  this 
sacred  place  or,  as  is  more  probable,  from  a  point 
farther  down  the  hill,  now  occupied  by  a  little 
chapel,  where  he  would  be  nearer  to  the  multitude 
of  the  market-place.  It  does  not  matter;  it  was 
on  the  Areopagus,  and  in  the  centre  of  temples  and 
a  thousand  statues  that  bespoke  the  highest  civili- 
zation of  the  pagan  world,  that  Paul  proclaimed 
the  truth,  which  man's  egotism  continually  forgets, 
that  in  temples  made  with  hands  the  Deity  does 
not  dwell. 

From  this  height,  on  the  side  of  the  Museum 
Hill,  we  see  the  grotto  that  has  been  dignified  with 
the  title  of  the  "prison  of  Socrates,"  but  upon 
slight  grounds.  When  the  philosopher  was  con- 
demned, the  annual  sacred  ship  which  was  sent 
with  thank-offerings  to  Delos  was  still  absent,  and 
until  its  return  no  execution  was  permitted  in  Ath- 
ens. Every  day  the  soldiers  who  guarded  Socrates 
ascended  this  hill,  and  went  round  the  point  to  see 
if  the  expected  vessel  was  in  sight;  and  it  is  for 
their  convenience  that  some  antiquarian  designated 
this  grotto  as  the  prison.  The  delay  of  the  ship 
gave  us  his  last  immortal  discourse. 

We  went  one  evening  by  the  Temple  of  Jupiter, 
along  the  Ilissus,  to  the  old  Stadium.  This  classic 
stream,  the  Ilissus,  is  a  gully,  with  steep  banks  and 
a  stony  bottom,  and  apparently  never  wet  except 
immediately  after  a  rain.  You  would  think  by  the 


530  THE   PANATHENAIC    STADIUM 

flattery  it  received  from  the  ancient  Athenians 
that  it  was  larger  than  the  Mississippi.  The  Pan- 
athenaic  Stadium,  as  it  is  called,  because  its  chief 
use  was  in  the  celebration  of  the  games  of  the  great 
quadrennial  festival,  was  by  nature  and  art  exceed- 
ingly well  adapted  to  chariot  races  and  other  con- 
tests. Open  at  the  end,  where  a  bridge  crossed 
the  Ilissus,  it  extended,  a  hundred  feet  broad,  six 
hundred  and  fifty  feet  into  the  hill,  upon  the  three 
sloping  sides  of  which,  in  seats  of  marble,  could 
be  accommodated  fifty  thousand  spectators.  Here 
the  Greek  youth  contended  for  the  prizes  in  the 
chariot  race,  and  the  more  barbarous  Roman  em- 
perors amused  a  degenerate  people  with  the  sight 
of  a  thousand  wild  beasts  hunted  and  slain  in  a 
single  celebration. 

The  Stadium  has  been  lately  re-excavated,  and 
at  the  time  of  our  visit  the  citizens  were  erecting 
some  cheap  benches  at  one  end,  and  preparing,  in 
a  feeble  way,  for  what  it  pleases  them  to  call  the 
Olympic  Games,  which  were  to  be  inaugurated  the 
following  Sunday.  The  place  must  inevitably 
dwarf  the  performance,  and  comparison  render  it 
ridiculous.  The  committee  -  men  may  seem  to 
themselves  Olympic  heroes,  and  they  had  the  ear- 
nest air  of  trying  to  make  themselves  believe  that 
they  were  really  reviving  the  ancient  glory  of 
Greece,  or  that  they  could  bring  it  back  by  calling 
a  horse-race  and  the  wrestling  of  some  awkward 
peasants  an  "Olympiad."  The  revival  could  be, 
as  we  afterwards  learned  it  was,  only  a  sickly  and 
laughable  affair.  The  life  of  a  nation  is  only  pre- 


A    NEW   GREEK    STATE  531 

served  in  progress,  not  in  attempts  to  make  dead 
forms  live  again.  It  is  difficult  to  have  chariot 
races  or  dramatic  contests  without  chariots  or 
poets,  and  I  suppose  the  modern  imitation  would 
scarcely  be  saved  from  ludicrousness,  even  if  the 
herald  should  proclaim  that  now  a  Patroclus  and 
now  an  Aristophanes  was  about  to  enter  the  arena. 
The  modern  occupants  of  Athens  seem  to  be  de- 
ceiving themselves  a  little  with  names  and  shad- 
ows. In  the  genuine  effort  to  revive  in  its  purity 
the  Greek  language,  and  to  inspire  a  love  of  art 
and  literature,  the  Western  traveler  will  wholly 
sympathize.  In  the  growth  of  a  liberal  commercial 
spirit  he  will  see  still  more  hope  of  a  new  and  en- 
during Greek  state.  But  a  puerile  imitation  of  a 
society  and  a  religion  which  cannot  possibly  have  a 
resurrection  excites  only  a  sad  smile.  There  is  no 
more  pitiful  sight  than  a  man  who  has  lost  his 
ideals,  unless  it  be  a  nation  which  has  lost  its 
ideals.  So  long  as  the  body  of  the  American  peo- 
ple hold  fast  to  the  simple  and  primitive  concep- 
tion of  a  republican  society,  —  to  the  ideals  of  a 
century  ago,  —  the  nation  can  survive,  as  England 
did,  a  period  of  political  corruption.  There  never 
was,  not  under  Themistocles  nor  under  Scander- 
beg,  a  more  glorious  struggle  for  independence 
than  that  which  the  battle  of  Navarino  virtually 
terminated.  The  world  had  a  right  to  expect 
from  the  victors  a  new  and  vigorous  national  lit*-, 
not  a  pale  and  sentimental  copy  of  a  splendid  ori- 
ginal, which  is  now  as  impossible  of  revival  as  the 
Roman  Empire.  To  do  the  practical  and  money- 


532  A   MORNING  EXCURSION 

getting  Greeks  justice,  I  could  not  learn  that  they 
took  a  deep  interest  in  the  "  Olympiad ;  "  nor  that 
the  inhabitants  of  ancient  Sparta  were  jealous  of 
the  reinstitution  of  the  national  games  in  Athens, 
since,  they  say,  there  are  no  longer  any  Athenians 
to  be  jealous  of. 

The  ancient  Athenians  were  an  early  people; 
they  liked  the  dewy  freshness  of  the  morning;  they 
gave  the  first  hours  of  the  day  to  the  market  and 
to  public  affairs,  and  the  rising  sun  often  greeted 
the  orators  on  the  6em«,  and  an  audience  on  the 
terrace  below.  We  had  seen  the  Acropolis  in  al- 
most every  aspect,  but  I  thought  that  one  might 
perhaps  catch  more  of  its  ancient  spirit  at  sunrise 
than  at  any  other  hour. 

It  is  four  o'clock  when  my  companion  and  I  de- 
scend into  the  silent  street  and  take  our  way  to  the 
ancient  citadel  by  the  shortest  and  steepest  path. 
Dawn  is  just  breaking  in  pink,  and  the  half  moon 
is  in  the  sky.  The  sleepy  guard  unbolts  the  gate 
and  admits  us,  but  does  not  care  to  follow;  and 
we  pass  the  Propyla3a  and  have  the  whole  field  to 
ourselves.  There  is  a  great  hush  as  we  come  into 
the  silent  presence  of  the  gray  Parthenon;  the 
shades  of  night  are  still  in  its  columns.  We  take 
our  station  on  a  broken  pillar,  so  that  we  can  en- 
joy a  three  quarters  view  of  the  east  front.  As 
the  light  strengthens  we  have  a  pink  sky  for  back- 
ground to  the  temple,  and  the  smooth  bay  of  Pha- 
lerum  is  like  a  piece  of  the  sky  dropped  down. 
Very  gradually  the  light  breaks  on  the  Parthenon, 
and  in  its  glowing  awakening  it  is  like  a  sentient 


THE    ACROPOLIS    AT    SUNRISE  533 

thing,  throwing  shadows  from  its  columns  and 
kindling  more  and  more ;  the  lion  gargoyles  on  the 
corners  of  the  pediment  have  a  life  which  we  had 
not  noticed  before.  There  is  now  a  pink  tint  on 
the  fragments  of  columns  lying  at  the  side;  there 
is  a  reddish  hue  on  the  plain  about  Piraeus;  the 
strait  of  Salamis  is  green,  but  growing  blue; 
Phalerum  is  taking  an  iridescent  sheen;  I  can 
see,  beyond  the  Gulf  of  ^Egina,  the  distant  height 
of  Aero-Corinth. 

The  city  is  still  in  heavy  shadow ;  even  the  Tem- 
ple of  Theseus  does  not  relax  from  its  sombreness. 
But  the  light  mounts;  it  catches  the  top  of  the 
white  columns  of  the  Propylaea,  it  shines  on  the 
cornice  of  the  Erechtheum,  and  creeps  down  in 
blushes  upon  the  faces  of  the  Caryatides,  which 
seem  to  bow  yet  in  worship  of  the  long-since-de- 
parted Pallas  Athene.  The  bugles  of  the  soldiers 
called  to  drill  on  the  Thesean  esplanade  float  up 
to  us;  they  are  really  bugle-notes  summoning  the 
statues  and  the  old  Pauathenaic  cavalcades  on  the 
friezes  to  life  and  morning  action.  The  day  ad- 
vances, the  red  sun  commanding  the  hill  and  flood- 
ing it  with  light,  and  the  buildings  glowing  more 
and  more  in  it,  but  yet  casting  shadows.  A  hawk 
sweeps  around  from  the  north  and  hangs  poised  on 
motionless  wings  over  the  building  just  as  the  sun 
touches  it.  We  climb  to  the  top  of  the  western 
pediment  for  the  wide  sweep  of  view.  The  world 
has  already  got  wind  of  day,  and  is  putting  off  its 
nightcaps  and  opening  its  doors.  As  we  descend 
we  peer  about  for  a  bit  of  marble  as  a  memento  of 


534  THE    AMPHITHEATRE 

our  visit ;  but  Lord  Elgin  has  left  little  for  the 
kleptomaniac  to  carry  away. 

•At  this  hour  the  Athenians  ought  to  be  assem- 
bling on  the  Pnyx  to  hear  Demosthenes,  who 
should  be  already  on  the  bema;  but  the  bema  has 
no  orator,  and  the  terrace  is  empty.  We  might 
perhaps  see  an  early  representation  at  the  theatre 
of  Dionysus,  into  which  we  can  cast  a  stone  from 
this  wall.  We  pass  the  gate,  scramble  along  the 
ragged  hillside,  —  the  dumping -ground  of  the  ex- 
cavators on  the  Acropolis,  —  and  stand  above  the 
highest  seats  of  the  Amphitheatre.  No  one  has 
come.  The  white  marble  chairs  in  the  front  row 
—  carved  with  the  names  of  the  priests  of  Bacchus 
and  reserved  for  them  —  wait,  and  even  the  seats 
not  reserved  are  empty.  There  is  no  white-clad 
chorus  manoeuvring  on  the  paved  orchestra  about 
the  altar;  the  stage  is  broken  in,  and  the  crouch- 
ing figures  that  supported  it  are  the  only  sign  of 
life.  One  would  like  to  have  sat  upon  these 
benches,  that  look  on  the  sea,  and  listened  to  a 
chorus  from  the  Antigone  this  morning.  One 
would  like  to  have  witnessed  that  scene  when  Aris- 
tophanes, on  this  stage,  mimicked  and  ridiculed 
Socrates,  and  the  philosopher,  rising  from  his 
undistinguished  seat  high  up  among  the  people, 
replied. 


XXX 


THROUGH   THE   GULF   OF   CORINTH 


ITH  deep  reluctance  we  tore  ourselves 
from  the  fascinations  of  Athens  very 
early  one  morning-.  After  these  things, 
says  the  Christian's  guide,  Paul  de- 
parted from  Athens  and  came  to  Corinth.  Our 
departure  was  in  the  same  direction.  We  had  no 
choice  of  time,  for  the  only  steamer  leaves  on  Sun- 
day morning,  and,  besides,  our  going  then  removed 
us  from  the  temptation  of  the  Olympic;  games.  At 
half  past  five  we  were  on  board  the  little  Greek 
steamer  at  the  Pirseus. 

We  sailed  along  Salamis.  It  was  a  morning  of 
clouds;  but  vagina  (once  mistress  of  these  seas, 
and  the  hated  rival  of  Athens)  and  the  Pelopon- 
nesus were  robed  in  graceful  garments  that,  like 
the  veils  of  the  Circassian  girls,  did  not  conceal 
their  forms.  In  four  hours  we  landed  at  Kala- 
maki,  which  is  merely  a  station  for  the  transfer  of 
passengers  across  the  Isthmus.  Six  miles  south 
on  the  coast  we  had  a  glimpse  of  Cenchreie,  which 
is  famous  as  the  place  where  Paul,  still  under  the 
bonds  of  Jewish  superstition,  having  accomplished 
his  vow,  shaved  his  head.  The  neck  of  limestone 


536 

rock,  which  connects  the  Peloponnesus  with  the 
mainland,  is  ten  miles  long,  and  not  more  than 
four  miles  broad  from  Kalamaki  to  Lutraki  on 
the  Gulf  of  Corinth,  and  as  it  is  not,  at  its  highest 
elevation,  over  a  hundred  feet  above  the  sea,  the 
project  of  piercing  it  with  a  canal,  which  was  often 
entertained  and  actually  begun  by  Nero,  does  not 
seem  preposterous.  The  traveler  over  it  to-day 
will  see  some  remains  of  the  line  of  fortification, 
the  Isthmian  Wall,  which  served  in  turn  Greeks, 
Macedonians,  Saracens,  Latin  Crusaders,  and 
Slavonic  settlers;  and  fragments  of  the  ancient 
buildings  of  the  Isthmian  Sanctuary,  where  the 
Panhellenic  festivals  were  celebrated. 

The  drive  across  was  exceedingly  pleasant. 
The  Isthmus  is  seamed  with  ravines  and  ridges, 
picturesque  with  rocks  which  running  vines  drape 
and  age  has  colored,  and  variegated  with  corn- 
fields. We  enjoyed  on  either  hand  the  splendid 
mountain  forms ;  on  the  north  white  Helicon  and 
Parnassus ;  on  the  south  the  nearly  two-thousand- 
feet  wall-crowned  height  of  Aero-Corinth  and  the 
broken  snowy  hills  of  the  Morea. 

Familiar  as  we  were  with  the  atlas,  we  had  not 
until  now  any  adequate  conception  how  much  in- 
dented the  Grecian  mainland  and  islands  are,  nor 
how  broken  into  peaks,  narrow  valleys,  and  long 
serrated  summits  are  the  contours.  When  we  ap- 
preciate, by  actual  sight,  the  multitude  of  islands 
that  compose  Greece,  how  subject  to  tempests  its 
seas  are,  how  difficult  is  communication  between 
the  villages  of  the  mainland,  or  even  those  on  the 


OLD   CORINTH  537 

same  island,  we  understand  the  naturalness  of  the 
ancient  divisions  and  strifes ;  and  we  see  the  phy- 
sical obstacles  to  the  creation  of  a  feeling  of  unity 
in  the  present  callow  kingdom.  And  one  hears 
with  no  surprise  that  Corfu  wishes  herself  back 
under  English  protection. 

We  drove  through  the  cluster  of  white  houses 
on  the  bay,  which  is  now  called  Corinth,  and  saw 
at  three  miles'  distance  the  site  of  the  old  city  and 
the  Acropolis  beyond  it.  Earthquakes  and  ma- 
laria have  not  been  more  lenient  to  the  ancient 
town  than  was  Roman  vengeance,  and  of  the  cap- 
ital which  was  to  Greece  in  luxury  what  Athens 
was  in  wit,  only  a  few  columns  and  sinking  walls 
remain.  Even  the  voluptuousness  of  Corinth  is 
a  tale  of  two  thousand  years  ago,  and  the  name 
might  long  ago  have  sunk  with  the  fortunes  of  the 
city,  but  for  the  long  residence  there  of  a  poor 
tent-maker,  in  whom  no  proud  citizen  of  that  day, 
of  all  those  who  "sat  down  to  eat  and  drink  and 
rose  up  to  play,"  would  have  recognized  the  chief 
creator  of  its  fame. 

Our  little  Greek  steamer  was  crowded  exces- 
sively, and  mainly  with  Greeks  going  to  Patras 
and  Zante,  who  noisily  talked  politics  and  business 
in  a  manner  that  savored  more  of  Xew  England 
than  of  the  land  of  Solon  and  Plato.  For  the  tirst 
time  in  a  travel  of  many  months  we  met  families 
together,  gentlemen  with  their  wives  and  children, 
and  saw  the  evidences  of  a  happy  home-life.  It  is 
everything  in  favor  of  the  Greeks  that  they  have 
preserved  the  idea  of  home,  and  cherish,  as  the 
centre  of  all  good  and  strength,  domestic  purity. 


538  THROUGH   THE   GULF   OF  CORINTH 

At  dinner  there  was  an  undisguised  rush  for 
seats  at  the  table,  and  the  strongest  men  got  them. 
We  looked  down  through  the  skylights  and  beheld 
the  valiant  Greeks  flourishing  their  knives,  at- 
tacking, while  expecting  soup,  the  caviare  and 
pickles,  and  thrusting  the  naked  blades  into  their 
mouths  without  fear.  The  knife  seems  seldom  to 
hurt  the  Greek,  whose  display  of  deadly  weapons 
is  mainly  for  show.  There  are  dozens  of  stout 
swarthy  fellows  on  board,  in  petticoats  and  quilted 
leggings,  with  each  a  belly  full  of  weapons,  —  the 
protruding  leathern  pouch  contains  a  couple  of 
pistols,  a  cheese-knife,  cartridges,  and  pipes  and 
tobacco. 

The  sail  through  the  Gulf  of  Corinth  is  one  to 
be  enjoyed  and  remembered,  but  the  reader  shall 
not  be  wearied  with  a  catalogue  of  names.  What 
is  it  to  him  that  we  felt  the  presence  of  Delphi; 
that  we  had  Parnassus  on  our  right,  and  Mt.  Pan- 
achaicum,  lifting  itself  higher  than  Mt.  Washing- 
ton, on  our  left;  theLocrian  coast  on  one  side,  and 
the  range  of  Arcadia  on  the  other?  The  strait 
narrowed  as  we  came  at  evening  near  Patras,  and 
between  the  opposite  forts  of  Rheum  and  Anti- 
rheum  it  is  no  broader  than  the  Bosphorus ;  it  was 
already  dusky  when  we  peered  into  the  Bay  of 
Lepaiito,  which  is  not,  however,  the  site  of  the 
battle  of  that  name  in  which  the  natural  son  of  the 
pretty  innkeeper  of  Ratisbon  rendered  such  a  sig- 
nal service  to  Christendom.  Patras,  a  thriving 
new  city,  which  inherits  the  name  but  not  the  site 
of  the  ancient,  lies  open  in  the  narrow  strait,  sub 


PATRAS    AND    ZANTE  539 

ject  to  the  high  wind  which  always  blows  through 
the  passage,  and  is  usually  a  dangerous  landing. 
All  the  time  that  we  lay  there  in  the  dark  we 
thought  a  tempest  was  prevailing,  but  the  clamor 
subsided  when  we  moved  into  the  open  sea.  Of 
Patras  we  saw  nothing  except  a  circle  of  lights  on 
the  shore  a  mile  long,  a  procession  of  colored 
torches  which  illumined  for  an  instant  the  facade 
of  the  city  hall,  and  some  rockets  which  went  up 
in  honor  of  a  local  patriot  who  had  returned  on 
our  boat  from  Athens.  And  we  had  not  even  a 
glimpse  of  Missolonghi,  which  we  passed  in  the 
night. 

At  daylight  we  are  at  Zante,  anchored  in  its 
eastward-looking  harbor  opposite  the  Peloponne- 
sian  coast.  The  town  is  most  charmingly  situ- 
ated, and  gives  one  an  impression  of  wealth  and 
elegance.  Old  Zacynthus  was  renowned  for  its 
hospitality  before  the  days  of  the  Athenian  and 
Spartan  wars,  and  —  such  is  the  tenacity  with 
which  traits  are  perpetuated  amid  a  thousand 
changes  —  its  present  wealthy  and  enterprising 
merchant-farmers,  whose  villas  are  scattered  about 
the  slopes,  enjoy  a  reputation  for  the  same  delight- 
ful gift.  The  gentlemen  are  distinguished  among 
the  Ionian*  for  their  fondness  of  country  life  and 
convivial  gayety.  Early  as  it  was,  the  town  wel- 
comed us  with  its  most  gracious  offerings  of  How- 
ers  and  fruit;  for  the  peddlers  who  swarmed  on 
board  brought  nothing  less  poetical  than  handfuls 
of  dewy  roses,  carnations,  heliotrope,  freslily  cut 
mignonette,  baskets  of  yellow  oranges,  and  bottles 


540  THROUGH   THE   GULF   OF   CORINTH 

of  red  wine.  The  wine,  of  which  the  Zante  pas- 
sengers had  boasted,  was  very  good,  and  the 
oranges,  solid,  juicy,  sweet,  the  best  I  have  ever 
eaten,  except,  perhaps, .  some  grown  in  a  fortunate 
year  in  Florida.  Sharp  hills  rise  behind  the  town, 
and,  beyond,  a  most  fertile  valley  broadens  out  to 
the  sea.  Almost  all  the  land  is  given  up  to  the 
culture  of  the  currant-vine,  the  grapes  of  Corinth, 
for  in  the  transfer  of  the  chief  cultivation  of  this 
profitable  fruit  from  Corinth  to  Zante,  the  name 
went  with  the  dwarf  vines.  On  the  hillsides,  as 
we  sailed  away,  we  observed  innumerable  terraces, 
broad,  flat,  and  hard  like  threshing-floors,  and 
learned  that  they  were  the  drying-grounds  of  the 
ripe  currants. 

We  were  all  day  among  the  Ionian  Islands,  and 
were  able  to  see  all  of  them  except  Cythera,  off 
Cape  Malea,  esteemed  for  its  honey  and  its  mag- 
nificent temple  to  the  foarn-born  Venus.  They 
lay  in  such  a  light  as  the  reader  of  Homer  likes 
to  think  of  them.  We  sailed  past  them  as  in  a 
dream,  not  caring  to  distinguish  history  from  fable. 
It  was  off  the  little  Echinades,  near  the  coast,  by 
the  mouth  of  the  Achelous,  that  Don  John,  three 
hundred  years  ago,  broke  the.  European  onset  of 
the  Ottoman  arms;  it  was  nearly  a  dear  victory 
for  Christendom,  for  among  the  severely  wounded 
was  Cervantes,  and  Don  Quixote  had  not  yet  been 
written.  But  this  battle  is  not  more  real  to  us 
than  the  story  of  Ulysses  and  Penelope  which  the 
rocky  surface  of  Ithaca  recalls.  And  as  we  lin- 
gered along  the  shores  of  Cephalonia  and  Leucadia, 


THE   IONIAN   ISLANDS  541 

it  was  not  of  any  Caesar  or  Byzantine  emperor  or 
Norman  chieftain  that  we  thought,  but  of  the  poet 
whose  verses  will  outlast  all  their  renown.  Leu- 
cadia  still  harbors,  it  is  said,  the  breed  of  wolves 
that,  perhaps,  of  all  the  inhabitants  of  these  isl- 
ands preserve  in  purity  the  Hellenic  blood.  We 
sailed  close  to  the  long  promontory,  "Leucadia's 
far-projecting  rock  of  woe,"  and  saw,  if  any  one 
may  see,  the  very  precipice  from  which  Sappho, 
leaping,  quenched  in  brine  the  amatory  flames  of 
a  heart  that  sixty  years  of  song  and  trouble  had 
not  cooled. 

Through  the  strait  of  Actium  we  looked  upon 
the  smooth  inland  sea  of  Ambracia,  while  our 
steamer  churned  along  the  very  waters  that  saw 
the  flight  of  the  purple  sails  of  Cleopatra,  whom 
the  enamored  Antony  followed  and  left  the  world 
to  Augustus.  The  world  was  a  small  affair  then, 
when  its  possession  could  be  decided  on  a  bit  of 
water  where,  as  Byron  says,  two  frigates  could 
hardly  manoeuvre.  These  historical  empires  were 
fleeting  shows  at  the  best,  not  to  be  compared  to 
the  permanent  conquests  and  empire  of  the  mind. 
The  voyager  from  the  Bosphorus  to  Corfu  feels 
that  it  is  not  any  Alexander  or  Caisar,  Chagan  or 
Caliph,  but  Homer,  who  rules  over  the  innumer- 
able islands  and  sunny  mainlands  of  Greece. 

It  was  deep  twilight  when  we  passed  the  barren 
rock  of  Antipaxos,  and  the  mountain  in  the  sea 
called  Paxos.  There  is  no  island  in  all  these  seas 
that  has  not  its  legend;  that  connected  with 
Paxos,  and  recorded  by  Plutarch,  I  am  tempted  to 


542  THROUGH   THE   GULF   OF  CORINTH 

transcribe  from  the  handbook,  in  the  quaint  lan- 
guage in  which  it  is  quoted,  for  it  expresses  not 
only  the  spirit  of  this  wild  coast,  but  also  our  own 
passage  out  of  the  domain  of  mythology  into  the 
sunlight  of  Christian  countries:  "Here,  about  the 
time  that  our  Lord  suffered  his  most  bitter  pas- 
sion, certain  persons  sailing  from  Italy  to  Cyprus 
at  night  heard  a  voice  calling  aloud,  Thamus! 
Thamus !  who  giving  ear  to  the  cry  was  bidden  (for 
he  was  pilot  of  the  ship),  when  he  came  near  to 
Pelodes  to  tell  that  the  great  god  Pan  was  dead, 
which  he  doubting  to  do,  yet  for  that  when  he 
came  to  Pelodes  there  was  such  a  calm  of  wind 
that  the  ship  stood  still  in  the  sea  unmoored,  he 
was  forced  to  cry  aloud  that  Pan  was  dead ;  where- 
withal there  were  such  piteous  outcries  and  dread- 
ful shrieking  as  hath  not  been  the  like.  By  which 
Pan,  of  some  is  understood  the  great  Sathanas, 
whose  kingdom  was  at  that  time  by  Christ  con- 
quered, and  the  gates  of  hell  broken  up;  for  at 
that  time  all  oracles  surceased,  and  enchanted  spir- 
its that  were  wont  to  delude  the  people  henceforth 
held  their  peace." 

It  was  ten  o'clock  at  night  when  we  reached 
Corfu,  and  sailed  in  under  the  starlight  by  the 
frowning  hill  of  the  fortress,  gliding  spectrally 
among  the  shipping,  with  steam  shut  off,  and  at  a 
signal  given  by  the  bowsman  letting  go  the  anchor 
in  front  of  the  old  battery. 

Corfu,  in  the  opinion  of  Napoleon,  enjoys  the 
most  beautiful  situation  in  the  world.  Its  loveli- 
ness is  in  no  danger  of  being  overpraised.  Shut 


CORFU  543 

in  by  the  Albanian  coast  opposite,  the  town  ap- 
pears to  lie  upon  a  lake,  surrounded  by  the  noblest 
hills  and  decorated  with  a  tropical  vegetation. 
Very  picturesque  in  its  moss-grown  rock  is  the 
half -dismantled  old  double  fortress,  which  the 
English,  in  surrendering  to  the  weak  Greek  state, 
endeavored  to  render  as  weak  as  possible.  It 
and  a  part  of  the  town  occupy  a  bold  promontory ; 
the  remainder  of  the  city  lies  around  a  little  bay 
formed  by  this  promontory  and  Quarantine  Island. 
The  more  we  see  of  the  charming  situation,  and 
become  familiar  witli  the  delicious  mountain  out- 
lines, we  regret  that  we  can  tarry  but  a  day,  and 
almost  envy  those  who  make  it  a  winter  home. 
The  interior  of  the  city  itself,  when  we  ascend  the 
height  and  walk  in  the  palace  square,  appears 
bright  and  cheerful,  but  retains  something  of  the 
dull  and  decorous  aspect  of  an  English  garrison 
town.  In  the  shops  the  traveler  does  not  find 
much  to  interest  him,  except  the  high  prices  of  all 
antiquities.  We  drove  five  miles  into  the  coun- 
try, to  the  conical  hill  and  garden  of  Gasturi, 
whose  mistress  gathered  for  us  flowers  and  let  us 
pluck  from  the  trees  the  ripe  and  rather  tasteless 
nrxj)O?i.  From  this  summit  is  an  extraordinary 
prospect  of  bine  sea,  mountains,  snowy  summits, 
the  town,  and  the  island,  broken  into  sharp  peaks 
and  most  luxuriant  valleys  and  hillsides.  An- 
cient, gnarled  olive-trees  abound,  thousands  of 
acres  of  grapevines  were  in  sight,  the  hedges  were 
the  prickly-pear  cactus,  and  groves  of  walnuts  and 
most  vigorous  tig-trees  interspersed  the  landscape. 


544          THROUGH   THE   GULF   OF   CORINTH 

There  was  even  here  and  there  a  palm.     A  lovely 
land,  most  poetical  in  its  contours. 

The  Italian  steamer  for  Brindisi  was  crowded 
with  passengers.  On  the  forward  deck  was  a  pic- 
turesque horde  of  Albanian  gypsies.  The  captain 
said  that  he  counted  eighty,  without  the  small 
ones,  which,  to  avoid  the  payment  of  fare,  were 
done  up  in  handkerchiefs  and  carried  in  bags 
like  kittens.  The  men,  in  broad,  short  breeches 
and  the  jackets  of  their  country,  were  stout  and 
fine  fellows  physically.  The  women,  wearing  no 
marked  costume,  but  clad  in  any  rags  of  dresses 
that  may  have  been  begged  or  stolen,  were  strik- 
ingly wild  in  appearance,  and  if  it  is  true  that  the 
women  of  a  race  best  preserve  the  primeval  traits, 
these  preserve,  in  their  swarthy  complexions,  burn- 
ing black  eyes,  and  jet  black  hair,  the  characteris- 
tics of  some  savage  Oriental  tribe.  The  hair  in 
front  was  woven  into  big  braids,  which  were  stiff 
with  coins  and  other  barbarous  ornaments  in  sil- 
ver. A  few  among  them  might  be  called  hand- 
some, since  their  profiles  were  classic;  but  it  was 
a  wild  beauty  which  woman  sometimes  shares  with 
the  panther.  They  slept  about  the  deck  amidst 
their  luggage,  one  family  usually  crawling  into  a 
single  sack.  In  the  morning  there  were  nests  of 
them  all  about,  and,  as  they  crawled  forth,  espe- 
cially as  the  little  ones  swarmed  out,  it  was  difficult 
to  believe  that  the  number  of  passengers  had  not 
been  miraculously  increased  in  the  night.  The 
women  carry  the  fortune  of  the  family  on  their 
heads;  certainly  their  raiment,  which  drapes  but 


BRINDISI  545 

does  not  conceal  their  forms,  would  scarcely  have 
a  value  in  the  rag-market  of  Naples.  I  bought 
of  one  of  them  a  silver  ornament,  cutting  it  from 
the  woman's  hair,  but  I  observed  that  her  husband 
appropriated  the  money. 

It  was  like  entering  a  new  world  of  order  and 
civilization,  next  morning,  to  sail  through  the  vast 
outer  harbor  of  Brindisi  into  the  inner  one,  and 
lie,  for  the  first  time  in  the  Mediterranean,  at  a 
dock.  The  gypsies  made  a  more  picturesque  land- 
ing than  the  other  passengers,  trudging  away  with 
their  bags,  tags,  rags,  and  tent-poles,  the  women 
and  children  lugging  their  share.  It  was  almost 
touching  to  see  their  care  for  the  heaps  of  rubbish 
which  constitute  all  their  worldly  possessions. 
They  come  like  locusts  to  plunder  sunny  Italy;  on 
a  pretense  of  seeking  work  in  the  fields,  they  will 
spend  the  summer  in  the  open  air,  gaining  health, 
and  living,  as  their  betters  like  to  live,  upon  the 
labor  of  others. 

Brindisi  has  a  beautiful  Roman  column,  near 
it  the  house  where  Virgil  is  said  to  have  died,  and 
an  ancient  fortress,  which  is  half  crumbling  walls 
and  half  dwelling-houses,  and  is  surrounded,  like 
the  city  wall,  by  a  moat,  now  converted  into  a  vege- 
table garden.  As  I  was  peacefully  walking  along 
the  rampart,  intending  to  surround  the  town,  a 
soldier  motioned  me  buck,  as  if  it  had  been  time 
of  war.  I  offered  to  stroll  over  the  drawbridge  into 
the  mouldy  fortress.  A  soldier  objected.  As  I 
turned  away,  he  changed  his  mind,  and  offered  to 
show  me  the  interior.  But  it  was  now  my  turn 


546  THROUGH    THE   GULF   OF   CORINTH 

to  decline;  and  I  told  him  that,  the  idle  impulse 
passed,  I  would  rather  not  go  in.  Of  all  human 
works  I  care  the  least  for  fortresses,  except  to  look 
at  from  the  outside ;  it  is  not  worth  while  to  enter 
one  except  by  storming  it  or  strolling  in,  and  when 
one  must  ask  permission  the  charm  is  gone.  You 
get  sick  to  death  almost  of  these  soldier-folk  who 
start  up  and  bar  your  way  with  a  bayonet  wher- 
ever you  seek  to  walk  in  Europe..  No,  soldier ;  I 
like  the  view  from  the  wall  of  the  moat,  and  the 
great  fields  of  ripe  wheat  waving  in  the  sweet 
north  wind,  but  I  don't  care  for  you  or  your  for- 
tress. 

Brindisi  is  clean,  but  dull.  Yet  it  was  charac- 
teristically Italian  that  I  should  encounter  in  the 
Duomo  square  a  smart,  smooth-tongued  charlatan, 
who  sold  gold  chains  at  a  franc  each,  —  which  did 
not  seem  to  be  dear;  and  a  jolly,  almost  hilarious 
cripple,  who,  having  no  use  of  his  shrunken  legs, 
had  mounted  himself  on  a  wooden  bottom,  like  a 
cheese-box,  and,  by  the  aid  of  his  hands,  went 
about  as  lively  as  a  centipede. 

I  stepped  into  the  cathedral;  a  service  was 
droning  on,  with  few  listeners.  On  one  side  of 
the  altar  was  a  hideous,  soiled  wax  image  of  the 
dead  Christ.  Over  the  altar,  in  the  central  place 
of  worship,  was  a  flaring  figure  of  the  Virgin,  clad 
in  the  latest  mode  of  French  millinery,  and  un- 
derneath it  was  the  legend,  Viva  Maria.  This 
was  the  salutation  of  oiir  return  to  a  Christian 
land:  Christ  is  dead;  the  Virgin  lives! 


THE   LAND    OF   THE   IMAGINATION  547 

Here  our  journey,  which  began  on  the  other 
coast  of  Italy  in  November,  ends  in  June.  In  as- 
cending the  Nile  to  the  Second  Cataract,  and  mak- 
ing the  circuit  of  the  Levant,  we  have  seen  a  con- 
siderable portion  of  the  Moslem  Empire  and  of  the 
nascent  Greek  kingdom,  which  aspires,  at  least  in 
Europe,  to  displace  it.  We  have  seen  both  in  a 
transition  period,  as  marked  as  any  since  the  Sar- 
acens trampled  out  the  last  remnants  of  the  always 
sickly  Greek  Empire.  The  prospect  is  hopeful, 
although  the  picture  of  social  and  political  life  is 
far  from  agreeable.  But  for  myself,  now  that  we 
are  out  of  the  Orient  and  away  from  all  its  squalor 
and  cheap  magnificence,  I  turn  again  to  it  with  a 
longing  which  I  cannot  explain ;  it  is  still  the  land 
of  the  imagination. 


INDEX 


ABAXA,  the  sacred,  263-273 ;  fantastic 
country-seata  on.  2(>5  ;  gorge  of  the. 
310,  311. 

Abd-el-Atti,  our  guide  and  dragoman, 
2 ;  in  trouble,  320 ;  unexpected 
champion  of,  324  ;  imprisonment  in 
and  release  from  the  seraglio,  331  ; 
parting  with,  473. 

Abd-el-Kader,  visit  to,  299;  enlight- 
.  ened  and  democratic  views  of,  300  ; 
true  Oriental  farewell  of,  .'501. 

Abraham,  tomb  of,  87  ;  visit  of,  to 
Egypt,  231,  2("4;  Palestine  in  pos- 
session of  Canaanites  in  time  of, 
233  ;  a  dweller  in  Damascus  before 
going  to  Canaan,  2(>4. 

Absalom,  David's  flight  from,  00 ; 
tomb  of,  stones  cast  at  the,  91,  97. 

Abu  Ghaush,  the  terrible  robber,  31  ; 
defied  Turkish  power  for  fifty  years, 
31. 

Abydos,  scene  of  Leander's  and  By- 
ron's swimming  feat,  402  ;  laying  of 
Xerxes's  bridge  at,  402. 

Abyssinians,  camp  of  decent,  1G7  ;  re- 
pulsive character  of,  212. 

Academe,  grove  of,  519. 

Aceldama,  the  "  field  of  blood,"  90 ; 
an  uncanny  place,  100. 

Achelous,  battle  between  Ottomans 
and  Christians  near  mouth  of  the, 
540. 

Achilla,  steamer,  trip  to  Cyprus  on, 
337  ;  passengers  of,  a  mixture  of  all 
nations,  358 ;  through  the  Darda- 
nelles in,  401. 

Achilles,  in  woman's  apparel,  490. 

Achmed,  champion  of  Abd-el-Atti, 
324. 

Acre,  city  of,  last  hold  of  the  Chris- 
tians in  Palestine,  94. 

Aero-Corinth,  520,  533,  53C.. 

Acropolis,  ancient  temples  at  B-i  al- 
bek  grainier  than  the,  253;  Mt  tint- 
on  the,  493 ;  feelings  on  tir.it  sight 
of,  49T>;  the  centre  of  the  world's 
thought,  49S  ;  description  of,  5<>4 ; 


every  Greek  city  had  its,  517  ;  seec 
at  sunrise,  532  :  last  view  of,  534. 
Actium,  Nicopolis  built  to  commemo- 
rate the  victory  of,  1S4 ;  through 
the  strait  of,  541. 
Adam,  chapel  of,  75. 
Adams  colony  in  Jaffa,  remnants  of, 
10;  its  little  church  of  Maine  tim- 
ber, 10 ;  dismay  of,  amid  Moslem 
squalor,  10  ;  its  leader  lacking  faith 
ti>  wait,  11  ;  its  deluded  victims  res- 
cued by  government,  11  ;  its  German 
successor  prosperous,  11  ;  hope  of 
making  money  cause  of  the  Ameri- 
can failure,  12;  New  Hampshire 
woman's  talk  about,  13  ;  odd  con- 
trast of  Yankee  dialect  with  Orien- 
tal surroundings,  13;  more  difficult 
to  keep  up  a  religious  feeling  here 
than  at  home,  14. 

Adirondacks,  Whiteface  resembles 
Mt.  Athos  in  Greece,  489. 

Adnllain,  cave  of,  David's  hiding  in, 
175,  187. 

.Kgaleos,  Mt..  514,  515. 

.Kgenn  islands,  3(i7  ;  former  splendor 
of,  487;  destroyed  and  stripped  by 
Turkish  avarice,  4*7  ;  still  under 
the  spell  of  genius,  491. 

.Egina,  Gulf  of,  533. 

.Kmilius  Patilus,  battle  between,  and 
King  Perseus,  48t>. 

.Esrhylus,  490  ;  born  in  Kleusis,  51S. 

Africa  circumnavigated  by  Plui-nician 
sailors,  232. 

Africans  in  SalomVa,  lofty  tearing  of, 
485. 

Agamemnon,  Paula's  descent  from, 
183. 

Agora,  valley  of  the.  5tl7,  52S. 

Ahab,  Jericho  rebuilt  in  time  of,  145. 

Ahman,  our  Abyssinian  servant,  2. 

Ahmed,  our  faithful  servant,  47:'-. 

Ahmed,  Sultan,  m-n-m.-  of,  42*.  4,".l. 

Aidin.  railway  t«>,  37'.'. 

'Ain  Dftk,  fountain  of,  147. 

'Ain  es-Siiltfin,  fountain  of,  144  147. 


550 


INDEX 


Ajalon,  valley  of,  27. 

Akka,  battlements  of,  226. 

Aksa,  mosque  of,  86. 

Aladdin,  discoveries  of  Cesnola  read 
like  the  adventures  of,  353. 

Alamas,  discoveries  in,  by  Cesnola, 
351. 

Albanian  coast,  543. 

Albanians,  Napoleon's  cruel  destruc- 
tion of,  18 ;  accustomed  to  being 
massacred  by  the  Romans  and  oth- 
ers, 19 ;  island  of  Andros  cultivated 
by,  491  ;  costume  of,  496,  516. 

Alcneus,  born  at  Lesbos,  394. 

Alcibiades  sought  Ephesus  for  its 
treasures  of  art  and  learning,  390. 

Alexander,  Smyrna  restored  by,  37G ; 
sat  to  Apelles  for  his  portrait,  389  ; 
golden  chariot  of,  441. 

Ali,  Mohammed,  mosque  of,  304;  old 
palace  of,  456. 

Allah,  the  valley  of  the  Abana  the 
gift  of,  269. 

"All  for  the  state  and  nothing  for  the 
man,"  the  ancient  motto,  490. 

Amathus,  ancient  city  of  Cyprus, 
349  ;  ancient  tombs  opened  at,  352. 

Amazonian  state  set  up  by  women  of 
Lernnos,  475 ;  its  formidable  repu- 
tation in  the  ancient  world,  475. 

Ambracia,  inland  sea  of,  541. 

America,  the  only  land  of  real  free- 
dom, 300 ;  Cesnola's  discoveries  a 
credit  to,  345 ;  to  be  saved  by  pre- 
serving its  early  ideals,  531. 

American  cemetery  at  Jerusalem,  58. 

American  consul  at  Beyrout,  singular 
conduct  of,  322. 

American  mission  in  Syria,  316 ;  in 
Athens,  509. 

Ammochosto,  ancient  city  of,  349. 

Ammon,  worship  of  the  god  of,  102. 

Amorites,  spot  where  Joshua  smote 
the,  27  ;  David's  raid  on,  30. 

Amphitheatre,  looking  down  upon 
the,  534  ;  Aristophanes  and  Socra- 
tes antagonists  in  the,  534. 

Anakim,  giants  of,  233. 

Anastasius,  horrible  assassination  in 
reign  of,  432. 

Ancient  builders,  cyclopean  struc- 
tures of,  247. 

Andrew,  St.,  reburied  in  Church  of 
St.  Sophia,  426. 

Andromeda,  stones  she  was  chained 
to,  225. 

Andros,  wine  of,  once  famous  through 
all  Greece,  491. 

Angel,  chapel  of  the,  44. 

Anjar,  the  river,  257. 

Antar,  singers  reciting  the  deeds  of, 
400. 

Antigone,  chorus  from  the,  534. 


Anti-Lebanon,  foot-hills  of,  239,  250. 

Antioch,  John  of,  in  the  Council  of 
Ephesus,  381,  382  ;  Simon  Stylites 
on  his  pillar  at,  454. 

Antipaxos,  barren  rock  of,  541. 

Antiques,  exaggerated  notion  of  the 
value  of,  526,  543. 

Antiquities  of  the  Syrian  coast,  232. 

Autirheum,  fortress  of,  538. 

Antonia,  fortress  of,  rebuilt  by  Herod, 
81. 

Antonio,  a  loquacious  dragoman,  148. 

Antony,  lived  with  Cleopatra  at  Sa- 
in os,  376  ;  progress  of,  in  Ephesus, 
390. 

Apelles,  born  in  Kos,  368. 

Aphrodisium,   surveyed   by  Cesnola, 

350. 

I  Aphrodite,  fabled  to  have  been  born 
off  coast  of  Cyprus,  344. 

Apollo,  sacred  fire  of,  extinguished  in 
Patera,  361  ;  birthplace  of,  492 ; 
site  of  Temple  of,  514. 

Apollo  Hylates,  Temple  of,  discovered 
by  Cesnola  at  Curium,  352. 

Apostles'  Creed,  place  where  com- 
posed, 112. 

Apples  of  the  Dead  Sea,  150. 

Araba,  a  wagon  like  the  band  chariot 
of  a  circus,  457 ;  ascent  of  the  Gi- 
ant's Grave  Mountain  in,  458. 

Arabian  poets,  Damascus  celebrated 
by,  269. 

Arabs  improvident,  158. 

Araxes,  pilgrims  from  the  banks  of, 
106. 

Arcadius,  first  Emperor  of  Byzantium, 
rivaled  in  magnificence  the  Persian 
monarchs  and  califs  of  Bagdad,  420  ; 
reception  of  the  ashes  of  the  Prophet 
Samuel  by,  427. 

Archilochus,  home  of  the  poet,  476. 

Archipelago,  toleration  needed  to  re- 
store its  ancient  glory,  487. 

Areopagite  council,  awful  solemnity 
of,  528. 

Areopagus,  504,  507,  528. 

Argonauts,  return  of,  to  Koroo  Ches- 
meh,  454  ;  halt  at  mouth  of  Bospho- 
rus,  459  ;  Lemnos  made  headquar- 
ters of,  475. 

Argos,  385,  517. 

Arian  controversy,  427. 

Arimathea,  tomb  of  Joseph  of,  70. 

Aristides,  507. 

Aristophanes,  the  sharp,  ringing  tones 
of  the  Greek  language  made  his  im- 
itation of  the  frogs  easy,  516. 

Aristotle,  his  meditations  in  the  groves 
of  Academe,  519  ;  Lesbos  visited  by, 
394. 

Ark,  planks  from  the,  kept  in  the 
Mosque  of  St.  Sophia,  425. 


INDEX 


551 


Arkansas,  the  Jordan  resembles  the, 
155. 

Arki,  island  of,  369. 

Armenian  convent  in  Jerusalem,  filled 
with  pilgrims,  53  ;  bells  of,  made  of 
plank,  54  ;  imposing  appearance  of 
bishop  of,  54 ;  a  Napoleon  each, 
price  of  lodging  in,  55  ;  an  odd  col- 
lection of  pilgrim  shoes  in,  55 ; 
another  visit  to,  '209  ;  refreshments 
at,  211. 

Armenians,  36,  40. 

Arnot,  Miss,  noble  work  of  her  mis- 
sion school  for  girls  in  Jaffa,  9. 

Arsinoe,  old  city  of,  found  by  Ces- 
nola,  351. 

Art  must  be  seen  where  its  great 
works  are  produced  to  be  fully  un- 
derstood,  527. 

Art  and  culture,  wonderful  revival  of, 
in  Athens,  510. 

Artemis,  birthplace  of,  492. 

Artemisia,  Queen,  ruler  of  Telos  and 
Nisyros,  3ti7  ;  tomb  of  Mausolus 
built  by,  3(58 ;  -sheltered  the  chil- 
dren of  Xerxes,  389. 

Ascension,  Chapel  of  the,  on  Mount 
of  Olives,  110. 

Asher,  residence  of  the  tribe  of,  227  ; 
importance  of,  in  time  of  the  Cru- 
sades, '227 ;  Napoleon's  discomfiture 
at,  227. 

Ashtaroth,  lascivious  rites  of,  101, 
126. 

Asia  Minor,  government  of,  robs  in- 
dustry, 371 ;  the  ancient  Bithynia 
and  Mysia,  449. 

Asia,  purple  hills  of,  seen  from  the 
walls  of  Mitylene,  394. 

Askalon,  pilgrims  from,  208. 

Assiout,  spring  of,  resorted  to  by  wo- 
men desiring  offspring,  187. 

Assurbanapal,  the  Assyrian  monarch 
(Sardauapalus),  354. 

Assyrians,  kingdom  of  Israel  gobbled 
up  by  the,  02. 

Astypatiea,  isle  of,  369. 

Athenais,  404. 

Athens,  art  of,  a  great  power  in  the 
world,  127 ;  love  of,  for  Skyros, 
490 ;  plain  of.  495  ;  ride  to,  by  the 
Long  Wall  of,  495;  baggy  garments 
of  the  East  not  seen  in,  4% ;  com- 
fort of  its  broad  streets  after  the 
narrow  lanes  of  the  Orient.  497  ; 
women  of,  not  beauties,  500 ;  no 
ancient  Athenian  found  in,  501  ; 
great  growth  of,  in  forty  years,  5(13  ; 
University  of,  510  ;  bigotry  of  Greek 
Church  in,  511  ;  seen  from  the 
Acropolis  at  sunrise,  532. 

Athos,  Mt.,  site  of  Agamemnon'H  bea- 
con-fire, 477  ;  independence  of  the 


Greek  Church  on,  477  ;  architecture 
and  customs  of  the  Middle  Ages 
preserved  on,  477  ;  no  women  al- 
lowed to  set  foot  on,  or  any  female 
animal,  477  ;  glory  of  a  sunset  on, 
478 ;  its  lordship  over  the  Mgesai, 
489. 

Attic  bees  as  busy  as  two  thousand 
years  ago,  515. 

Attica,  portals  of,  493  ;  world-wide  in- 
fluence of  its  history  belied  by  its 
meagre  territory,  494. 

Augustus,  empire  left  to,  by  Antony, 
541. 

Aurelia  de  Bossa,  tomb  of,  1 12. 

Aurelian,  423. 

Ayasolook,  once  a  residence  of  sultans, 
380;  picturesque  ruins  of,  381. 

Aziz,  Sultan  Abdul,  kept  in  the  cage 
of  the  Seraglio  of  Stamboul,  421 ; 
going  to  prayer,  437. 

BAAL,  scene  of  Elijah's  victory  over 
the  priests  of,  22(i ;  Mammon  the 
modern,  226;  Temple  of,  at  Ba'al- 
bek,  249. 

Ba'albek,  road  to,  239 ;  journey  to, 
243  ;  arrival  at,  245  ;  like  the  well- 
known  picture  of,  245  ;  sweetness  of 
waters  of,  247  ;  no  record  of,  pre- 
served, 24S  ;  ruins  of,  grainier  than 
represented,  249  ;  anticipated  Gothic 
genius,  249  ;  suggested  Saracenic  in- 
vention, 249 ;  splendid  sunset  from, 
250 ;  seen  by  moonlight,  251  ;  brutal 
Moslem  procession  at,  252  ;  view  of 
Lebanon  from,  254. 

Bacchus  and  Hercules,  fabled  exploits 
of,  in  Ephesus,  384. 

Backsheesh,  cry  of,  29 ;  to  propitiate 
the  Prophet,  86  ;  plot  of  slii-ykhs  to 
secure,  165;  clamor  for,  166;  not 
importuned  for,  in  Zahleh,  24(1 ;  ex- 
pectation of,  in  I  >amascus,  276  ;  one 
official  who  refused,  3!H. 

Bagdad,  way  to,  311  ;  magnificence  of 
the  califs  of,  420. 

Baggage  as  well  as  passengers  all  car- 
ried on  backs  of  lieasts  of  burden  in 
the  East,  27. 

Balaklava,  nameless  dead  of,  buried 
at  Scutari,  451. 

Bar-Jesus,  place  of  Paul's  encounter 
with  the  sorcerer,  1541. 

Barley,  large  patches  of,  19. 

Bathslit'lxi,  wife  of  Uriah,  first  seen 
by  David,  52;  Pool  of,  52. 

Bay  of  Naples,  and  Sea  of  Marmora, 
449. 

Bazaars  at  Jerusalem,  dark  and  grave- 
like,  65  ;  at  Stamlxtul,  kccjicrs  of,  a 
study,  414. 

Bebek,  visit  to,  434,  435. 


552 


INDEX 


Bedawee,  sticks  to  his  word  when  bet- 
ter to  keep  than  break  it,  129 ;  sav- 
age appearance  of,  132  ;  intrusion 
of,  upon  camp,  1G5 ;  lofty  conduct 
of,  171 ;  lost  ideal  of  nobleness  of, 
172 ;  camps  of  the,  192. 

Beggars,  Moslem,  the  worst,  110,  251. 

Beginnings  of  our  era,  371. 

Beicos,  straggling  village  of,  456. 

Belgrade,  sacred  forest  of,  unprofaned 
by  an  axe,  459. 

Bells,  fondness  of  Cyprians  for,  343. 

Benjamin  and  Judah,  boundaries  be- 
tween territory  of,  27. 

Benjamin,  tribe  of,  left-handed,  C3; 
ancient  bad,  but  modern  worse,  63. 

BerdQny,  gorge  of  the,  239. 

Beshiktash,  palace  of,  407 ;  visit  to, 
436  ;  crowds  at,  to  see  Sultan  go  to 
prayer,  437  ;  a  strange  religious  ex- 
citement, 438  ;  Jason  landed  at,  454. 

Bethany,  Christ's  ascension  from,  111; 
a  squalid  hamlet,  114  :  fine  prospect 
from,  114  ;  tomb  of  Lazarus  at,  114. 

Bethesda,  disputed  location  of  Pool 
of,  98  ;  Pool  of  Siloam  thought  to  be 
the  same  as,  98. 

Bethlehem,  description  of,  174  ;  now, 
as  always,  a  Christian  town,  175 ; 
hostility  of,  to  the  Moslems,  175 ; 
beauty  and  virtue  of  women  of,  175  ; 
industry  and  self-respect  of  men  of, 
175  ;  name  of,  sweetest  of  all  words, 
175 ;  scene  of  Ruth's  story  and  Da- 
vid's consecration,  175 ;  mountain- 
ous approaches  to,  176;  "plains" 
of,  a  myth,  176 ;  cleaner  than  Jeru- 
salem, but  more  commercial,  179 ; 
entertainment  at,  180. 

Beyezid  II.,  mosque  of  Sultan,  413. 

Beyrout,  approach  to,  234  ;  American 
mission  and  college  at,  234,  316 ;  re- 
turn to,  from  Damascus,  like  coming 
back  to  the  world,  315 ;  bounteous 
land  of  silk  and  wine,  315  ;  former  as 
well  as  present  seat  of  learning,  318. 

Bible,  the  best  guide-book  to  the  Holy 
Land,  46. 

Big  Sheykh,  like  Big  Injun,  170. 

Bigotry,  relaxation   of,  in   the   East, 

484. 
Boaz,  sweet  associations  of  the  land 

of,  180. 
Bffiotia,  sailing  near,  490. 

Bois  de  Boulogne  of  the  Bosphorus, 

444. 

Boolgoorloo,  ascent  of  the,  448. 
BosphoniB,  palaces  of  the,  418,  447 ; 
first  bewildering  sail  on  the,  434  ; 
sea  and  shore  of,  a  scene  of  crowded 
life,  434 ;  gay  scene  on  shore  of, 
444 ;  scene  of  magical  beauty  on, 
445 ;  gorgeous  sunset  on,  44C ;  a 


river  of  lapis  lazuli  lined  with  mar- 
ble palaces,  453. 

Boudroum,  view  of,  368 ;  its  fortress 
wrested  from  Knights  of  St.  John, 
368 ;  birthplace  of  Herodotus  and 
Dionysius,  368. 

Bouillon,  Godfrey  de,  first  king  of 
Jerusalem,  sword  of,  75  ;  Duchesse 
de,  a  fortunate  woman  who  enjoys 
the  glory  of  the  dead  while  receiv- 
ing the  homage  of  the  living,  112. 

Brigands,  formerly  infested  Mt.  Pep- 
telicus,  523 ;  capture  of  Englishmen 
by,  524. 

Brook  Kidron,  91,  191. 

Broussa,  first  capital  of  the  Osman 
dynasty,  449 ;  famed  for  its  gauzy 
silk,  449. 

Brushwood,  women  loaded  with,  but 
covered  with  ornaments,  29. 

Bubastis,  scene  on  Bosphorus  like  an- 
cient fete  of,  444. 

Buckle,  Henry  T.,  burial-place  of,  near 
Damascus,  283. 

BiikS'a,  fertile  plain  of,  244 ;  brilliant 
view  from,  244 ;  gay  colors  of,  257. 

Buyukdereh,  summer  resort  of  foreign 
residents  of  Constantinople,  461 ; 
ferried  to,  by  an  aged  Greek  boat- 
man, 461 ;  near  being  our  last  voy- 
age, 461. 

Byron's  swim  to  fame,  402. 

Byzantine  architecture,  372  ;  more  re- 
mains of,  in  Salonica  than  in  any 
other  place  except  Constantinople, 
481 ;  paintings  in  Salonica,  484 ; 
church  in  Athens,  508. 

Byzantine  Empire  survived  a  thou- 
sand years  in  effeminate  luxury, 
463 ;  present  dissoluteness  of  the 
Turks  no  warrant  for  its  speedy 
dissolution,  463 ;  a  power  strong 
enough  to  expel  the  Turks  and  unite 
the  Greeks  required  for  the  refor- 
mation, 464. 

Byzantine  rule,  corruption  of,  347 ; 
cruelty  and  treachery  of,  421. 

Byzantium,  factions  of,  more  licen- 
tious than  those  of  Rome,  430. 

CACKLING  of  hens,  talk  of  some  Greek 
women  like,  516. 

Caiaphas,  house  of,  56. 

Caique,  a  tottlish  water-craft,  411  ; 
Sultan  going  to  prayer  in  his  carved 
and  gilded,  440. 

Cairo,  a  "  miserable  hole,"  303 ;  ba- 
zaars of,  have  more  antique  trea- 
sures than  those  of  Constantinople, 
413. 

Caligula,  exploits  of,  432. 

Calla-lily,  black,  26,  222. 

Calvary,  site  of,  43 ;  Christ's  passage 


INDEX 


553 


from  Pilate's  Hall  of  Judgment  to, 
49. 

Canaanites,  coast  of  the,  never  sub- 
dued by  the  Jews,  228 ;  a  literary 
people  before  Joshua's  time,  230; 
language  nearly  like  the  Hebrew, 
230  ;  ancient  works  of,  at  Ba'albek, 
298. 

Canterbury  Pilgrims  to,  the  way  to 
Jerusalem  a  vivid  picture  of,  27. 

Carinel,  Mt.,  regret  at  not  visiting, 
219 ;  under  shadow  of,  226 :  scene 
of  Elijah's  prayer  for  rain,  226. 

Carmelite  nuns,  convent  for,  113. 

Carob-tree,  prodigal  son  supposed  to 
have  fed  upon  its  husks.  19. 

Carpassa,  ancient  city  of  Cyprus,  349. 

Caryatides  in  the  Erechtheum,  507. 

Caseneau,  the  French  conjurer,  his 
tricks  with  cards,  399. 

Cassius  destroys  himself  at  Philippi, 
476. 

Caucasus,  our  race  has  attained  the 
most  perfect  form  in,  400 ;  formerly 
renowned  for  men  of  valor  as  well 
as  for  women  of  beauty,  460 ;  rais-  t 
ing  inmates  for  Turkish  harems, 
460. 

Cemeteries,  of  Jerusalem,  barren  and 
strewn  with  broken  stones,  56 ;  used 
for  interments  three  thousand  years,  ' 
58;  our  guide  gives  a  living  interest 
to,  58  ;  shut  in  by  high  walls,  58 ; 
musings  in,  58 ;  of  Damascus,  burial 
of  celebrated  persons  in,  284. 

Cemetery  of  Scutari,  description  of, 
450  ;  queer  headstones  of,  451. 

Cenchre*,  place  where  Paul  shaved 
his  head,  535. 

Centaurs,  horsemanship  of  the  Thes- 
salians  gave  rise  to  tiie  fable  of  the, 
488. 

Ceres,  Temple  of,  still  under  the  clod, 
516  ;  a  delicate  hand  from  the  ruins 
of,  517  ;  myths  of,  517. 

Cesnola,  General  di,  collection  of  an- 
tiques by,  120.  345;  presentation  of 
credentials  to.  :«!) ;  sketcli  of,  34S  ; 
difficulty  of  his  researches,  349. 

Chalce,  island  of.  367. 

Chalcedon,  ancient,  405 ;  repassing 
shore  of,  473. 

Chalcis,  an  old  city  once  occupied  by 
Herod,  unknown  origin  of.  2.17. 

Chalkis,  site  of  ancient,  4!H1. 

Chanak-Kalesi,  on  the  Dardanelles 
the  great  Asiatic  entrepot,  4"!  ;  bar- 
barous pottery  of,  seen  all  over  the 
East,  402  ;  hideous  designs  on.  4<»2  ; 
Castle  of  Asia  at,  474. 

Changes  of  the  world  due  to  woman's 
impatience  of  monotony,  477. 

Chapel  of  the  Nativity,  1S5. 


Chemosh,  temple  to,  91. 

Cherith,  the   Brook,  flows  through  a 

remarkable  canon,  141  ;  difficulty  of 

fording,  144. 

Chersonesus,  the  ancient,  403. 
Chibouk,  the  pipe  of  Egypt,  267. 
Children,  of  Israel,  first  camp  of.  at 

Gilgal,  145  ;  beautiful,  of  Damascus, 

288,  293. 

Chios,  birthplace  of  Homer,  371. 
C'hittim,  Paul's  visit  to  isle  of,  .'541. 
Christ,  prison  of,  56. 
Christian     Church,    simple     worship 

of,   contrasted   with   the   elaborate 

Greek  ritual  or  repetitions  of  Mos- 
lem prayers,  452. 
Christianity,  Western,  missionaries  of, 

exerting  a  controlling  influence  in 

Syria,  241. 
Christians,  slaughter  of,  in  Damascus, 

by  Moslems  and  Druses,  271. 
Chrysostom,   Church    of    St.    Sophia 

burned  by  party  of,  426. 
Church  edifices  of  the  East  used  by 

one  sect  after  another,  483  ;  interior 

harmony  of,  destroyed  by  twisting 

the  altars  round  to  face  Mecca,  425, 

484. 
Cicero  entertained  with  games  at  Eph- 

esus,  390 ;  exile  of,  passed  in  Salo- 

nica,  485. 
Circus  of    Constantinople,   an   arena 

like  that  of  Rome,  430. 
Citium,  Lazarus  Bishop  of,  340 ;  an- 
cient site  of,  341 ;  once  a  flourishing 

city,  345. 
Citti,  Mosque  of,  old  and  venerated 

like  those  of  Mecca  and  Jerusalem, 

341. 

Civilizinc  influence  of  man  over  wo- 
man, 47(i. 
Classic  coast,  361. 
Cle«tt;is,  506. 
Cleopatra,       cleaving      the       writers 

skimmed  by  her  purple  sails,  541. 
Clytemnestra,  fall  of  Troy  telegraphed 

to,  475. 

Cnidus,  Dorian  city  of.  367. 
('o'liaculitm.  site  of  Last  Supper,  60. 
Colchis,  Jason  on  his  way  from,  lands 

at  Beshiktash,  4.14 ;  fabulous  wealth 

of,  tempted  the  sea-robbers,  4611. 
Colonus,  Si»i-red  hill  of,  52(1. 
Colorado,  atmosphere  of  the  valley  of 

the  Jordan  like,  14!». 
Colossus  of    Rhodes  shaken  down  '.y 

an  earthquake,  IJ61. 
Column  on  which  the  rook  crew  when 

Peter  denied  his  I^onl.  56. 
Comfort,  not  a  characteristic  of  the 

East,  297. 
Con.-ord  River,  Jordan  width  of  the, 

but  f-vifter,  15.1. 


554 


INDEX 


Conessus,    burial-place    of    Ephesus, 

007      OOQ 
OO  I  .    OOO. 

Constantino,  Arch  of,  484. 

Constantinople  covers  the  site  of  an- 
cient Byzantium,  40C ;  European 
customs  in,  working  out  the  Orien- 
tal, 410 ;  dogs  an  ugly  characteris- 
tic of,  413 ;  unequaled  situation  of, 
437  ;  a  city  of  the  dead  and  living, 
442  ;  first  siege  of,  by  the  Arabs, 
446 ;  unrivaled  empress  of  cities, 
449  ;  its  iron-clads  and  fortresses 
forbid  its  fall,  450 ;  one  of  the  dis- 
solute cities  of  the  world,  462 ;  con- 
dition of  society  worse  under  Greek 
rule,  463 ;  commerce  and  trade  of, 
largely  in  hands  of  foreigners,  463 ; 
story  of  a  beauty  of,  465-471  ;  re- 
gretful leaving  of,  472. 

Consul,  American,  at  Beyrout,  in  bad 
odor,  318,  325;  hard  scratching  of, 
to  live  at,  319;  English  more  re- 
spected, 319,  325. 

Convent  of  Ramleh,  picture  of  Mother 
and  Child  in,  both  black,  24 ;  East 
has  no  prejudice  against  color,  25  ; 
battles  of  cross  and  crescent  once 
seen  from  its  walls,  25;  the  clash 
of  arms  not  likely  to  be  heard  here 
again,  so  long  as  plundering  pil- 
grims is  more  profitable,  25. 

Cook's  pilgrims  at  Jaffa,  7 ;  called 
"Cookies,"  28;  at  Jerusalem,  68; 
at  Beyrout,  235  ;  at  Damascus,  306. 

Copper  coin,  Roman,  found  every- 
where in  the  Orient,  251. 

Corfu,  work  in  gold  and  silver  from, 
499  ;  would  prefer  English  to  Greek 
rule,  537  ;  has  most  beautiful  situa- 
tion in  the  world,  542. 

Corinth,  through  the  Gulf  of,  538, 
539 ;  few  ancient  remains  of,  537  ;  a 
poor  tent-maker  keeps  its  name 
alive,  537. 

Cornaro,  Queen  Catharine,  reign  of, 
in  Cyprus,  347. 

Corsican,  the  cruel  little,  destroys  the 
Albanians  at  Jaffa,  18 ;  an  inexcusa- 
ble and  dastardly  act,  18. 

Corydallus,  Mt.,  514. 

Costume  of  the  Grecian  islands,  474. 

Court  of  justice,  a  Turkish,  335,  336. 

Credulity  catered  to  by  finding  sacred 
spots  and  showing  sacred  relics,  74. 

Crescent  the  emblem  of  Byzantium 
before  the  Christian  era,  adopted 
by  the  Osmanli,  426. 

Crimean  war,  English  cemetery  dedi- 
cated to  those  who  fell  in  the, 
451. 

Croat,  brilliant  get-up  of  a.  455. 

Cross,  Chapel  of  the  Elevation  of  the, 
75. 


"Crown  of  Thorns,"  shrubs  from 
which  plaited,  151. 

Crucifixion,  place  of,  75 ;  rent  made 
in  rock  by  earthquake  at  time  of, 
75  ;  chapel  of  the,  solemn  impres- 
sions at,  76. 

Crusaders,  fortifications  built  by,  27  ; 
tents  of  the,  on  Mt.  Olivet,  90. 

Curium,  brought  to  light  by  Cesnola, 
351 ;  researches  at,  352  ;  ancient 
treasures  of,  354. 

Cyanean  rocks  Jason  thought  floating 
islands  or  sea  monsters,  459. 

Cyclades,  entering  the,  491. 

Cymon,  bones  of  Theseus  found  by, 
490. 

Cyprians,  fondness  of,  for  bells, 
343. 

Cyprus,  perfect  repose  of,  338 ;  ad- 
ventures in,  341  ;  women  of,  343 ; 
discovery  of  Phoenician  usages  and 
relics  in,  343;  sketch  of,  344-356; 
various  rulers  of,  345  ;  savage  rule 
of  Turks  in,  347  ;  magnificent  trea- 
sures found  at,  354,  355. 

Cyril,  patriarch  of  Alexandria,  382 ; 
his  participation  in  the  Council  of 
Ephesus,  383. 

DAMASCUS,  Gate  of,  102 ;  highway  to, 
102 ;  St.  John  of,  a  fiery  character, 
197  ;  en  route  to,  236 ;  trade  of,  be- 
tween Beyrout  and  the  Mediterra- 
nean, 258 ;  sudden  appearance  of 
domes  and  minarets  of,  261 ;  Dimi- 
tri's  hotel  at,  262;  oldest  of  old 
cities,  263  ;  preserves  its  ancient 
appearance,  263 ;  founded  by  Uz, 
263 ;  dwelt  in  by  Abraham,  263 ;  has 
outlived  all  the  ancient  cities  of  the 
Orient,  265;  possessed  by  Babylo- 
nians, Persians,  Greeks,  Romans, 
Saracens,  Christians,  and  Turks, 
265 ;  mud-walls  of,  267,  271 ;  a  city 
of  fountains  and  running  water, 
266  ;  frogs  and  dogs  a  feature  of, 
266  ;  smoking  chief  occupation  of, 
268  ;  bazaars  of,  268  ;  not  so  rich  as 
those  of  Cairo,  268,  285 ;  celebrated 
gardens  of,  desolate  by  day,  but 
brilliant  by  night,  273  ;  great  plane- 
tree  of,  273  ;  great  mosque  of,  274 ; 
like  a  rabbit-burrow,  277  ;  baths  of, 
278;  no  drays  or  carts  in,  289; 
splendid  private  houses  of,  291, 
built  about  paved  courts,  292,  visit 
to,  293,  hospitable  reception  at, 
293,  description  of,  296,  no  respec- 
table American  would  live  in,  305  ; 
shaped  like  an  oval  dish  with  a  long 
handle,  311  ;  Straight  street  of, 
crookeder  than  in  time  of  Paul, 
312 ;  view  of,  at  a  distance  most 


INDEX 


555 


interesting,  311  ;   life  in,  313;   last 
glimpse  of,  the  loveliest,  314. 

Dance  of  the  Bedaweens  by  the  Jor- 
dan, 105 ;  women  worse  than  men 
in,  160. 

Dandolo,  assault  of,  on  Seraglio  Point, 
473. 

Daphne,  groves  of,  454 ;  Pass  of,  514, 
519  ;  Monastery  of,  514. 

Darabouka,  dull  drone  of  the,  485. 

Dardanelles,  through  the,  401  ;  won- 
derful historic  water-street  of  fill 
nations,  403  ;  may  yet  lead  the 
way  to  European  possession  of  Lit- 
tle Asia,  404  ;  return  through  the, 
474. 

Darius,  satrapy  of,  346 ;  place  of  his 
crossing  the  Bosphorus,  430. 

Darwishes,  performance  of  the  Turn- 
ing, 442 ;  description  of,  442. 

David,  a  guerrilla,  30 ;  his  raid  on  the 
Amorites,  'M. 

David,  Tower  of,  36,  47,  51 ;  tomb  of, 
59;  place  of  consecration,  175. 

Dead,  Little  Field  of  the,  on  the  Bos-  j 
phorus,  442. 

Dead  Sea,  seen  from  David's  Tower,  : 
53 ;  descent  to,  150  ;  not  so  dead  as  j 
represented,  157  ;  vegetation  about 
the,  157  ;  not  a  scene  of  desolation,  | 
157 ;    water    salt    and    bitter,    but 
clear,  158 ;  too  salt  for  any  fish  but 
codfish,    158 ;    buoyancy   not  exag- 
gerated, 158 ;  delightful  swimming 
in,  158  ;  depth  of,  below  Mediterra- 
nean, 159  ;  no  appearance  of  fire  or 
bitumen  near,  159  ;  no  difficulty  in 
making  the  plain  of,  fertile,   10O  ; 
picture  of  future  happiness  at,  160  ;  | 
luxurious  lunch  at,  101  ;    want  of 
fresh  water  makes  travelers  move 
on,  161. 

Death  never  so  ghastly  as  when  tricked  ', 
out  with  jewelry,  4*t. 

Deity  does  not  dwell  in  temples  made  ] 
with  hands,  Paul's  grand  aiinuncia-  j 
l  inn.  529. 

Delicious  azure  of  the  -•Egean,  4S9. 

Delos,  religious  and  political  centre  of 
Greece,  492  ;  birthplace  of  Apollo 
and  Artemis,  492. 

Delphi,  Temple  of,  site  of,  now  a  small 
and  almost  deserted  rock,  492. 

Demetrius,  St.,  exploits  of,  340. 

Democracy,  misfortune  a  great  teach- 
er of,  300. 

Demosthenes  in  the  forum,  534. 

Description  of  the  Acropolis  at  Ath- 
ens, 504. 

Desert,  young  prince  of  the,  164. 

Diamonds,  Damascus  women  blazing 
with,  294 ;  pride  of  exhibiting 
themselves  in,  298. 


Diana,  sacred  Temple  of,  at  Ephesus, 
3>vl ;  statue  of,  discovered  in,  385. 

Differing  religions  inherit  without 
shame  the  churches  of  the  East, 
483. 

Discovery  of  ancient  treasures  at  Cy- 
prus by  Cesnola,  344-355. 

Dives,  house  of,  50. 

Divine  Child,  place  of  birth  of,  174. 

Dogs  have  freedom  of  city  in  Stam- 
boul,  as  in  Damascus,  413. 

Dome  of  the  Rock,  82  ;  of  the  Spirits, 
David's  judgment-seat,  86. 

Domes  of  Stamboul,  splendor  of,  in 
the  sunset,  433,  447. 

Donkey,  the  Jerusalem,  more  obsti- 
nate than  the  Cairo,  109;  contempt- 
ible as  well  as  contemptuous  beast, 
109 :  their  abuse  here  will  be  set  to 
their  account  hereafter,  102. 

Don  Quixote,  world  came  near  losing, 
540. 

Dorcas,  house  of,  8. 

Doves,  protected  as  almost  sacred  in 
Stamboul,  413. 

Dragoman,  an  arsenal  of  arms,  28 ; 
fierce  and  important.  28  ;  informa- 
tion, not  work,  their  forte,  148;  lo- 
quacity of,  148  ;  quarrel  of,  in  Bey- 
rout,  320-334. 

Druses,  capture  of  town  of  Zahleh  by, 
240  ;  horrible  stories  of  the,  253  ; 
all  things  to  all  men,  259. 

EAGLE,  race  for  a  feather  of,  152. 

East,  shiftlessness  and  unpunctuality 
of  the,  130. 

Eastern  Question  to  lie  solved  by  edu- 
cation, 437. 

Eastern  women,  dumb  attitude  of, 
277. 

Easy  to  !>e  good  in  Greece,  522. 

Ecce  Homo  arch,  where  Christ  stood 
before  the  populace,  5O. 

Echinades,  Don  John's  repulse  of  the 
Ottomans  near.  540. 

Education  to  work  the  transformation 
of  the  East,  464. 

Egyptian  ox  the  emblem  of  St.  Luke, 
3S7. 

Elali.  valley  of,  32  ;  stone  from  brook 
in,  killed  Goliath,  32;  slings  from 
grog-shop  near  by  have  slain  more 
than  David's,  32. 

Eleusinian  mysteries,  518. 

Eleusis,  513;  mysteries  of  Ceres  at, 
513 ;  Bay  of,  like  a  lovely  lake.  515  ; 
village  of,  515 ;  mischievous  chil- 
dren of,  51S. 

Elias,  Chapel  of  St.,  in  Athens,  514. 

Elijah,  place  where  fed  by  the  ravens, 
141  ;  hist  journey  of,  to  the  Jordan, 
146;  ascent  of,  into  heaven,  140, 


556 


INDEX 


search  for,  after,  146  ;  scene  of  his 
victory  over  priests  of  Baal,  226  ; 
grotto  of,  226. 

English  school  at  Jerusalem,  GO. 

Kphesus,  flying  visit  to,  379 ;  beauty 
and  thrift  of  country  about,  379 ; 
.St.  John  came  to,  from  Patmos, 
381 ;  Virgin  Mary  and  Apostles  lived 
at,  381 ;  Mary  Magdalene  and  St. 
Timothy  buried  at,  382  ;  once  a  city 
of  churches,  382  ;  famous  Council 
of,  383 ;  carried  like  a  Tammany 
caucus,  383  ;  turbulent  encounter 
of  rival  factions  in,  383 ;  Temple  of 
Diana  at,  oldest  ou  record,  385; 
cave  of  the  Seven  Sleepers  at,  386  ; 
Little  Theatre  of,  387  ;  Great  Thea- 
tre of,  388  ;  desolation  of,  388  ;  the 
gospel  proclaimed  from,  390. 

Erechtheum,  Ionic  columns  of  the, 
505. 

Eresso,  Greek  women  preserve  the 
type  of  beauty  at,  396. 

Erinnyes,  the  avenging  Furies,  528. 

Eryinanthe,  steamer,  passage  to  Jaffa 
in,  2. 

Esdraelon,  plain  of,  219. 

Es-Serat,  Mahomet's  dead-line,  peril- 
ous passage  of,  by  the  faithful,  93. 

Ethiopia,  black  Virgin  and  Child  of, 
24. 

Euboea,  peaks  of,  489. 

Euripus,  490. 

Eutropius  the  eunuch  protected  by 
Chrysostom,  427. 

Euxine,  view  of,  from  Giant's  Grave* 
Mountain,  459. 

Evangelists,  gold  covers  of  the  books 
of  the,  in  Church  of  St.  Sophia,  423. 

Eyoub,  cemetery  of,  446  ;  mosque  of, 
where  the  sultans  are  inaugurated, 
446. 

FAIR  of  Moses,  207  ;  of  St.  George, 

343. 
Fasts,  New  England,  not  like  Eastern, 

196. 
F&timeh,   child    of    Ali    Mohammed, 

buried  at  Damascus,  284. 
Ferdinand,  Jews  expelled  from  Spain 

by,  03. 
Flavian,   primate  of    Constantinople, 

trampled  to    death    at   Council  of 

Ephesus,  384. 

Floating  harem,  our  steamer  a,  454. 
Founder  of  Christianity,  scenes  of  his 

living  presence  desecrated  by  shams, 

221. 
Fountain  of  Elisha,  a  remarkable  pool, 

163  ;  rest  and  gossip  by,  103  ;  cos- 
tume of  Greek  bathers  at,  1(54. 
Fountains  of  Damascus  are  basins,  not 

jets  of  water,  293. 


Franciscan  convent  in  Cyprus,  Amer- 
ican benefactors  of,  341. 

Funeral,  Armenian  quarrel  over  a,  56. 

Funeral  art  gives  new  conception  of 
Greek  grace,  tenderness,  and  sensi- 
bility, 527. 

Fustanella,  a  Greek  in,  looks  like  a 
landsknecht  above  and  a  ballet-girl 
below,  500. 

GABBATHA,  pavement  on  which  Christ 

walked,  50. 
Galata,  a  part  of  Constantinople,  407, 

449 ;  glorious  view  from  the  Genoese 

tower  of,  472. 

Galgam,  a  high-spirited,  171. 
Gallipoli,  404. 

Gardens  in  the  air  of  Damascus,  277. 
Gasturi,  garden  of,  in  Corfu,  543. 
Gate  of  God  in  Damascus,  pilgrims 

pass  through  to  Mecca,  311. 
Gath,    David    and   Saul    skirmishing 

about,  30. 

Gehenna,  the  blasted  gulf  of,  93. 
Genius,  the  deathless  spell  of,  gives 

us  intimations  of  immortality,  520. 
George,  St.,  exploits  of,  340  ;  church 

of,  340. 
Georgian  women  long  for  the  harem 

as  a  piece  of  good  fortune,  454. 
Gethsemane,    Garden    of,    110,   115 ; 

touching  associations  of,  115. 
Gettysburg,    nameless    dead    in     the 

cemetery  of,  like  those  sleeping  at 

Scutari,  451. 
Geuksoo,  the  river,  kiosk  of  the  Sultan 

on,  the  finest  on  the  Bosphorus,  456. 
Giant's  Grave  Mountain,  view  of  the 

entire  length  of  the  Bosphorus  from, 

458. 
Gibeon,    heights    of,    where    Joshua 

worsted  the  Amorites,  27. 
Gihon,  Pool  of,  52,  60. 
Gilgal,   first  camp   of  Jews  at,  145 ; 

nastiest  place  in   the   world,   151 ; 

once  fertile  and  flourishing,  151. 
Glorious  sunset  on  Mt.  Athos,  478. 
Glory  of  the  sea  and  sky  on  leaving 

Constantinople,  473. 
Godfrey,  soldiers  of,  95  ;  greatness  of 

their  possessions  and  wonder  of  their 

works,  95. 

Golden  Gate  in  Solomon's  Porch,  im- 
pressive view  from,  90. 
Golden   Horn,   impossible    navigation 

of,  at  night,  405 ;  Sweet  Waters  of 

Europe  the  inlet  to,  443  ;  thronged 

bridges  and  countless  masts  of  the, 

449. 
Golgos,  site  of,  discovered  by  Cesnola, 

350. 
Golgotha,  hill  of,  45 ;  gloom  of  chapel 

of,  75. 


IXDEX 


557 


Good-by  to  reader,  547. 

Gospel  first  proclaimed  f rom  Ephesus, 
390. 

Grand  Canal  of  Venice,  pageants  on, 
like  those  of  the  Bosphorus,  44(i. 

Graveyard  festivals  a  peculiar  enjoy- 
ment of  the  Orientals,  442. 

"  Great  God  Pan  is  dead,"  542. 

Greece,  rudeness  of  printing  in,  499  ; 
nnequaled  mines  and  quarries  of, 
499;  beating  her  pruning-hooka  into 
spears,  5(13  ;  composed  of  a  multi- 
tude of  islands,  53G. 

Greek  cross,  main  streets  of  Athens 
cross  each  other  like  a,  497. 

Greek  language  has  survived  the  By- 
zantine anarchy,  Slavonic  conquest, 
and  Frank  occupation,  501  ;  sharp 
metallic  sound  of,  516. 

Greeks,  fastest  talkers  in  the  world, 
516 ;  simplicity  and  nobility  of  the 
domestic  life  of,  527. 

Gregory  Nazianzen  installed  upon  the 
Episcopal  throne  by  Theodosius, 
427. 

Grotto  of  the  Nativity,  early  record 
of,  182 ;  basilica  over,  oldest  re- 
mains of  Christian  architecture, 
182. 

Gypsies,  Albanian,  description  of, 
544. 

HADRIAN,  statue  of,  once  stood  on  Mt. 
Moriah,  82  :  Arch  of,  502. 

Haifa,  German  colony  at,  KJ ;  arrival 
in  harbor  of,  220  ;  description  of, 
22G. 

"  Half  horse,  half  alligator,"  the  Ken- 
tuckian  phrase  sprung  from  fable 
of  the  Centaurs,  488. 

Halicarnassus,  view  of  city  of,  308. 

Hannibal  conferred  with  Antiochus  at 
Ephesus,  390. 

Harem,  or  Temple  area,  79  ;  delight- 
ful place  to  dream  of  the  glory  of 
the  past  in,  79 ;  not  open  to  the 
general  visitor.  79 ;  an  authentic 
historical  spot,  79  ;  English  woman 
in  a,  2t>9 ;  visit  to  court  of  a,  293. 

Head-dress  of  Jewish  women  in  Salo- 
nica  a  model  for  Americans,  4sl. 

Heavenly  Water,  vale  of  the,  43G ; 
great  place  of  resort,  443  ;  gay  voy- 
age to,  444  ;  loveliest  in  the  East, 
and  foretaste  of  Paradise,  4o<i. 

Hebrew  nation,  its  modern  greater 
than  its  ancient  influence.  122. 

Hebron  Gate,  3G. 

Helena,  chapel  of,  78  ;  tomb  of,  103  ; 
island  of,  492. 

Helicon  and  Parnassus.  538. 

Heliogabalus.  exploits  of.  in  arena  of 
Stamboul,  432. 


Hellespont  must  be  possessed  by  one 
nation  or  all,  404. 

Heracleuin,  ancient,  48G. 

Hermits,  their  holes  in  the  rocks,  141. 

Hermon,  summit  of,  142 ;  pleasant 
sight  of,  102,  257. 

Hero,  scene  of  Leander's  swimming 
exploit  to  meet,  402. 

Herodotus,  birthplace  of,  368. 
,  Hesperides,  fruits  of  the,  exacted  in 
Colchis,  4GO. 

Hezekiah,  Pool  of,  3f.,  42. 
!  Hieropolis.  visit  to  ancient  ruins  of, 
24G. 

Highways,  no  traces  of  ancient,  33 ; 
the  roads  only  mule-tracks  the  travel 
of  generations  has  made,  33 ;  the 
present  road  to  Jerusalem  laid  out 
by  the  Sultan  for  the  Empress  Eu- 
genie, but  left  in  the  rough,  33 ; 
not  well  to  have  a  "  way  beautiful," 
34  ;  length  of  journey  would  be 
lessened  and  plunder  of  the  vaga- 
lx>nds  decreased,  34. 

Hill,  Dr..  missionary  to  Greece,  503. 

Hill  of  Evil  Counsel,  101. 

Hiiinom,  valley  of,  Gl,  1(11  :  a  savage 
gorge  of  horrible  associations,  101. 

Hippicus,  Tower  of,  51. 

Hippodrome,  fai'tions  of,  burned 
Church  of  St.  Sophia,  42G ;  mosque 
of  Sultan  Ahmed  on  site  of,  428 ; 
arena  of,  still  kept  open,  431  ;  most 
famous  square  in  Stamboul,  432 ; 
pyramid  in,  erected  in  time  of  Con- 
stant ine,  432. 

Hiram  of  Tyre,  91  ;  aid  to  Solomon, 
123;  shrewd  bargainer,  230. 

Historical  places  of  Jud;ca,  disenchant- 
ment of  seeing,  218. 

Hittites,  conquest  of  Egypt  by,  231, 
248. 

Holy  City  not  impressive  for  its  sweet- 
ness, 38  ;  present  squalor  contrasted 
with  past  grandeur.  3i>;  lives  on  the 
pilgrims  to,  105 ;  vast  crowds  to, 
from  Ethiopia,  Siberia,  ami  Asia 
Minor,  105. 

Holy  Lund  rejoices  in  birds  of  beauty, 
19;  motives  that  bring  jx-ople  to 

the,  302,  3oc. 

Holy  places  in  the  Church  of  the  Holy 
Sepulchre,  list  of.  77. 

Holy  Sepulchre,  mother  and  boy  lone 
pilgrims  to,  24  ;  visits  to  the  Church 
of  the,  38-45. 

Home,  idea  of,  preserved  by  the 
Greeks,  5.T7. 

Homer,  birthplace  of,  371  ;  a  day  with, 
among  the  Ionian  islands,  540  ;  the 
ruler  of  the  Grecian  isle*.  541. 

Honoring,  my  hor.se  like  CiblxMi's  de- 
scription of  tli"  Emperor,  190. 


558 


INDEX 


Hope  of  civilization  in  the  East,  547. 
Horns  that  blew  down  the   walls  of 
.     Jericho,  preservation  of,  425. 
Horse,  points  of  my  Arab,  153. 
Horsemanship,  display  of  Bedaween, 

171;  ecclesiastical,  191. 
Hotel  of  the  Twelve  Tribes  outside 

Jaffa  occupied  by  Cook's  tribe,  7  ; 

woful  look  of  "  Cookies  "  at  the  hard 

Syrian  horses  given  them  to  ride,  7 
House  of  Priam,  discovery  of  treasure; 

of,  353. 
Hudson  at  West  Point  resembles  the 

Bosphorus,  436. 
Hun-Kiar  Iskelesi,  private  residence 

of  the  sultans  in  the  valley  of,  456. 
Hyde  Park  of  the  Bosphorus,  446. 
Hymettus,  495;  purple  robe  of,  498, 

502. 

IBN'  ASAKKR,  historian  of  Damascus, 

grave  of,  284. 
Icaria,  scene  of  Daedalus's  experiment 

in  aerial  navigation,  370. 
Idalium,  tombs  of,  opened  by  Cesnola 

and  discovery  of  ancient  pottery  in, 

350. 

Ikos,  now  a  rabbit-warren,  489. 
Ilissus,  valley  of  the,  497  ;  Temple  of 

Jupiter    overlooks    the,    502  ;     the 

classic  stream  a  dry  gully,  529. 
Ilium,  picturing  the  glories  of,  401. 
Illyrian  race,  Albanians  belong  to  the, 

491. 
Imbros  and  Lemnos,  passage  between, 

475. 
Indians,  dance  of  the  Bedaweens  like 

that  of  the,  165. 
Iiikermaun,  the  fallen  at,  sleep  in  the 

cemetery  at  Scutari,  451. 
Ionian  Islands,  among  the,  540. 
lonians,  ancient,  491,  539. 
Irene,  the  Empress,  account  of  her 

cruelty  and  punishment,  396 ;  church 

of,  an  arsonal,  421. 
Isaiah,  Tree  of,  where  the  prophet  was 

sawn  asunder,  100. 
Iscariot,  blasted  tree  of,  101. 
Isis,  statue  of,  in  Museum  at  Athens, 

527. 
Islam,   description   of    the   chief   of, 

442. 
Islands  of  the  Eastern  Mediterranean, 

Turkish  massacre  and  Greek  revenge 

the  history  of,  464. 

Isles  of  the  Blest,  in  the  Sea  of  Mar- 
mora, enchanting  situation  of,  449. 
Israel,  kingdom  of,  62  ;  children  of, 

67  ;  extent  of  its  power,  122. 
Israelites,  resemblance  to  Scotch  High- 
landers, 122  ;  the  hills  their  strength, 

122  ;  the  acquisition  of  wealth  their 

destruction,   123 ;   picture  of  their 


habits  in  2d  Samuel,  124  ;  barbarity 
of,  124. 

lulis,  home  of  legends  and  poets,  492  ; 
purity  of  its  people  ascribed  to 
flight  of  the  nymphs  frightened  by 
a  roaring  lion,  492. 

JAFFA  existed  before  the  deluge,  3 ; 
chief  Mediterranean  port  of  Jerusa- 
lem, 3 ;  dangerous  approach  to,  in 
bad  weather,  4 ;  Solomon  landed  his 
Lebanon  timber  for  the  Temple  at, 
3  ;  occupied  by  Saracen  hosts  and 
Crusaders,  3  ;  depot  of  supplies  for 
Venice,  Genoa,  and  other  rich  cities, 
during  Holy  War,  3  ;  possessed  by 
great  kingdoms  and  conquerors  in 
turn,  3  ;  for  thousands  of  years  its 
perilous  roadstead  trusted  by  mer- 
chants, 3  ;  better  harbor  needed  be- 
fore regeneration  of  Palestine  can 
be  hoped  for,  4  ;  looks  from  the  sea 
like  a  brown  bowl  bottom  up,  4; 
streets  narrow  and  evil  smelling,  4  ; 
pictures  of  it  generally  correct,  4 ; 
would  take  Jews  a  long  time  to  re- 
turn by  this  difficult  way,  5  ;  gate 
at  which  the  mighty  of  the  past 
have  waited,  5 ;  embarkation  of 
Jonah  from,  has  given  it  world-wide 
notoriety,  6  ;  bazaars  and  fruit  mar- 
ket of,  6,  7  ;  Gate  of,  in  Jerusalem, 
51,  100,  109;  return  to,  and  depar- 
ture from,  224. 

Janizaries,  costumes  of  the,  422 ;  pa- 
rade-ground of,  432 ;  destruction  of, 
432. 

Jason  landed  at  Beshiktash  on  his  voy- 
age to  Colchis,  454. 

Jehoshaphat,  valley  of,  91,110;  cheer- 
ful associations  of,  100;  common 
sewer  of  Jerusalem,  100 ;  journey 
through,  135. 

Jeremiah,  birthplace  of,  32  ;  hard 
country  cause  of  his  doleful  strain, 
32  ;  cheerful  words  of,  97  ;  cave  of, 
104 ;  grotto  of,  where  he  lived  and 
lamented,  now  a  donkey  stable,  104. 

Jericho,  going  down  to,  129 ;  more 
thieves  than  good  Samaritans  to  be 
found  there,  129;  grand  cavalcade 
for,  131  ;  made  up  of  men  and  ani- 
mals of  all  kinds  and  countries,  135; 
road  to,  thronged  with  pilgrims, 
barefoot  and  in  all  sorts  of  outfits, 
136  ;  New  Testament  site  of,  not  the 
one  cursed  by  Joshua,  143  ;  walls 
blown  down  by  Joshua's  horns,  145 ; 
a  hillock  and  Elisha's  spring  only 
remains  of,  147. 

Jerome,  cell  of,  visited  with  real  emo- 
tion, 183;  Carpaccio's  painting  of. 
184. 


INDEX 


559 


Jerusalem,  rough  way  to,  17  ;  every 
foot  of  ground  consecrated  or  dese- 
crated, 27 ;  hills  terraced  for  vines 
and  olives,  but  few  growing,  29  ; 
does  not  "  burst  "  on  the  view,  35 ; 
rough  rabble  pressing  through  the 
gates  of,  36  ;  streets  of,  filthy 
ditches,  37 ;  not  formidable  to  the 
explorer,  46 ;  school  for  girls  needed 
in,  47.;  squalor  and  shabbiness  of, 
48 ;  present  unchristian  character 
of,  116;  a  city  of  humbugs,  118; 
songs  and  stories  of  its  prophets  and 
poets  draw  the  world  to  it,  12G ;  re- 
nowned for  literature  as  Athens  for 
art,  127  ;  not  valued  by  the  ancients 
as  by  the  moderns,  127  ;  sacred  for 
its  precious  memories,  127  ;  stirring 
scenes  outside  the  walls  of,  215 ; 
final  leave  of,  219 ;  buried  beneath 
the  rubbish  of  credulity  and  super- 
stition, 220 ;  would  have  been  bet- 
ter for  living  Christianity  if  it  had 
shared  the  fate  of  Carthage,  Mem- 
phis, and  Tadmor,  220. 

Jessup,  Dr.,  of  Beyrout,  240,  317. 

Jesus  expected  to  descend  upon 
Church  of  John  the  Baptist  in  Da- 
mascus, 276. 

Jews,  movement  of,  towards  repeo- 
pliiig  the  Holy  Land,  16 ;  could  be 
better  provided  for  away  from  Je- 
rusalem, 61 ;  filthy  quarter  of,  62  ; 
fair  skin  and  light  hair  the  original 
type  of,  62 ;  present  debased  ap- 
pearance of,  64 ;  wailing  of,  64 ;  ex- 
tent of  country  of,  121 ;  history  of, 
125;  gross  idolatries  of,  125;  their 
literature  their  chief  hold  on  the 
world,  126;  settled  in  the  Delta  of 
the  Nile,  265  ;  wandering  of,  im- 
proves the  race,  481. 

Jezebel,  power  of  the  Princess,  229. 

Jezreel,  219. 

Joab,  well  of,  99. 

Johnston,  John  Taylor,  Cesnola's  first 
collection  sold  to,  350. 

John  the  Baptist,  where  born,  32; 
Church  of,  in  Damascus,  flocked  to 
by  all,  274  ;  rivals  temples  of  Ba'al- 
bek and  Palmyra,  275. 

Jonah,  place  of  the  whale's  casting 
up,  235. 

Jordan,  place  of  passage  of,  by  the  Is- 
raelites, 142 ;  muddy  banks,  but 
swift  stream,  155;  sacred  to  think 
of,  but  dirty  to  look  at,  155 ;  a  shiv- 
ering bather  in,  156. 

Joseph  of  Arimathea,  tomb  of,  70. 

Josephus,  his  account  of  Jonah,  5  ;  ac- 
count of  the  siege  of  Jerusalem,  48. 

Joshua,  spot  where  he  commanded  the 
moon  to  stand  still,  27  ;  grave  of,  458. 


Journey  over,  its  disagreeables  forgot- 
ten, and  longing  to  go  over  it  again, 
547. 

Jove,  Olympian,  486. 

Judeea,  blue  hills  of,  17 ;  thrilling 
sensation  of  seeing,  17 ;  clear  at- 
mosphere of,  152  ;  Fair  of  Moses  in 
wilderness  of,  brings  out  a  rough 
rabble,  207,  208. 

Judith,  tomb  of  kings  of,  supposed  to 
shine  with  splendor  and  riches,  59  ; 
no  one  permitted  to  enter,  59 ;  king- 
dom of,  121. 

Judas,  gallows-tree  of,  101. 

Jupiter,  Temple  of,  at  Ba'albek  larger 
than  the  Parthenon,  249 ;  at  en- 
trance to  the  Bosphorus,  459;  in 
Athens,  502. 

Justinian,  Church  of  St.  Mary  built 
by,  83. 

KALAHARI,  lauding  at,  535. 

Kalyminos,  island  of,  369. 

Kandili,  beautiful  situation  of,  455 ; 

prospect  of  two  continents  from, 

455. 
Karnak,   ruins  of,   not  so  grand   as 

those  of  Ba'albek,  252. 
Kawass,  taken  about  Cyprus  by  Gen- 
eral Cesnola's,  342. 
Keleos  girls  now,   as  of  old,   filling 

their  pails  at  the  well,  515. 
Kentucky,  meeting  with  tourists  from, 

147. 
Keos,  famous  for  its  decree  that  all 

over  sixty  should  die,  492. 
Kephisia,  a  summer  resort  as  of  old, 

523. 

Kephissus,  olive-orchards  of,  514 ;  riv- 
ulet of,  519. 

Kerah  Nun,  burial-place  of  Noah,  243. 
Keramicus,  the  ancient  cemetery  of 

Athens,   new  excavations  at,  497  ; 

touching  position  of  figures  found 

in,  527. 

Kerata,  double  peaks  of  Mt.,  517. 
Ketmehr,  the  wise  dog  of  the  Koran, 

386. 

Khfiled,  the  Sword  of  God,  27o. 
Khan,  lunch  at  a  mountain,  244. 
Khedive  of  Egypt,  456 ;  palace  given 

to  the  Sultan  by  the,  456. 
Khilid-bahri,  on    European   shore  of 

the  Dardanelles,  401. 
Kidron,  valley  of,  96,  189. 
Kings,  Tombs  of  the,  103 ;  ingenious 

door  of,  103;   inferior  to  tombs  of 

Egypt,  103. 

Kirjath-Jearim,  pleasing  name,  31. 
Kishon,  the  river  where  Elijah  slew 

the  prophets  of  Baal,  22t>. 
Kissing,  stones  worn  by,  44,  C7. 
Kithneou,  pass  of,  515,  517. 


560 


INDEX 


Korais,  statue  of,  in  Athens,  511. 

Koroo  Chesmeh,  laurel-tree  at, planted 
by  Medea,  454. 

Kos,  birthplace  of  Apelles  and  of  Hip- 
pocrates, 3G8. 

Kury,  located  by  Cesnola,  351. 

Kyle,  Miss,  obliged  by  the  bigots  to 
close  her  Protestant  school  in  Ath- 
ens, 511. 

LAKE  COMO,  Bay  of  Buyukdereh  like, 

461. 

Lamartine,  his  residence  on  Mt.  Leb- 
anon, 238. 
Lamentations  read  at  Jewish  wailing- 

place,  67. 
Larnaka,  harbor  of,  338 ;  excavations 

at,  341. 
Laurel-grove  at  Athens,  no  trace  of, 

514. 

Lazarus,  stone  sat  on  by,  50 ;  tomb  of, 
114 ;  Church  of  St.,  in  Cyprus,  340 ; 
Bishop  of  Citium,  340. 
Leander,  scene  of  his  swimming  feat, 

402. 

Lebanon,  mountains  of,  seen  from  the 
coast,  227,  234 ;  ascent  of,  237  ;  glo- 
ries of,  239. 

Ledra,  necropolis  of,  found  by  Ces- 
nola, 349. 

Lemnos,  beauty  of  first  women   of, 
475 ;  killed  their  husbands  and  set 
up  an  Amazonian  state,  475 ;  sunset 
view  of,  479. 
Lepanto,  Bay  of,  538. 
Lepers,    loathsome    encounter    with, 

65. 

Leros,  isle  of,  369. 
Lesbos,  source  of  lyric  poetry,  394  ; 

home  of  Alcaeus  and  Sappho,  394. 
"Leucadia's  far  -  projecting  rock   of 

woe,"  541. 
Leucolla    traced    out    by     Cesnola, 

351. 

Levant,  Gate  of  the,  94  ;  hard  fare  of 
the  peasantry  of  the,  339  ;  leaven  of 
change  working  in,  464. 
Life  more  important  than  creed,  211. 
Lion,  colossal  image  of,  at  Keos,  492. 
Lipso,  island  of,  369. 
Lit3ny  River,  240,  257. 
Lombardy,  iron  crown  of,  has  nail  of 

the  cross  in,  79. 

Longing  look  back  to  the  Kast,  547. 
Lord    Byron    swimming  the   Helles- 
pont, 402 ;  death  of,  at  Missolonghi, 
465. 

Lord  Elgin  has  gathered  every  scrap 
of  antique  marble,  leaving  none  to 
tourists,  534. 

Lord's  Prayer,  chapel  on  the  place 
where  Christ  gave  his  disciples  the, 
112;  in  "Canadian"  language,  112. 


Luke,  St.,  remains  of,  removed  to 
Church  of  St.  Sophia,  426. 

Lusignan  dynasty,  340,  347. 

Luxuries,  mosques,  baths,  and  ceme- 
teries the  three  great  Oriental,  448. 

Luxury,  not  comfort,  of  Eastern 
homes,  297. 

Lycabettus,  singular  cone  of,  498,  520 ; 
marvelous  view  from,  520;  sono- 
rous call  to  prayer  from,  521. 

Lycia,  coast  of.  360  ;  metropolis  of, 
361. 

Lycian  mountains,  glorious  sunset  on, 
360. 

Lycius,  Phidias,  Praxiteles,  Cleoatas, 
Myron,  contrast  of  their  time  with 
our  time,  506. 

Lycomedes,  Achilles  hides  in  garden 
of,  490. 

Lysander,  like  all  the  notabilities  of 
his  time,  sought  Ephesus  for  its  va- 
ried attractions,  390. 

MACCABEES,  old  fortifications  of,  27. 
Madonnas,  living,  at  Damascus,  295. 
Mteaiider,  the  tortuous,  region  about 

it  a  garden,  379. 
Magnesia,  peninsula  of,  488. 
Maids  of  Athens,  few  m  the  streets 
whose  beauty  poets  would  celebrate, 
501. 
Malaria  has  followed  the  fall  of  the 

Roman  Empire,  485. 
tfaliacus,  Bay  of,  488. 
Malta,  Knights  of,  give  interest  to  the 

Gate  of  the  Levant,  94. 
Manuscripts,  purchase  of  ancient,  from 

Abyssinian  pilgrims,  167. 
Marcli  too  early  for  traveling  in  Syria, 

46. 
Mark   Twain,  his  guide-book  to  the 

Holy  Land,  306. 

Marathon,  figure  of  Minerva  Proma- 
chuscast  by  Phidias  out  of  the  spoils 
of,  506 ;  the  field  of,  only  a  small 
field  of  a  few  miles  square,  525 ; 
want  of  room  to  manoeuvre  explains 
the  defeat  of  the  Persians,  525. 
Marium,  necropolis  of,  laid  open  by 

Cesnola,  351. 

Marmora,  Sea  of,  the  "  vexed  Propon- 
tis,"  405;  island  of,  405:  like  Bay 
of  Naples,  449  ;  like  New  York  Bay, 
449  ;  contains  the  Isles  of  the  Blest, 
449. 

Maronites  on  Mt.  Lebanon,  241,  258. 
Mar  Saba,  convent  of,  188  ;  clinging 
like  wasps'  nests  to  the  rock,  192  ; 
main  tower  of,  like  a  fortress,  193  ; 
guarded  to  keep  Bedaweens  and  wo- 
men out,  193  ;  last  retreat  on  earth 
of  men,  194  ;  prospect  of  hard  fare 
at,  196;  ghastly  charnel-house  of, 


INDEX 


561 


196 ;  filled  with  birds  and  pilgrims, 
198 ;  tumult  of  niidiiight  call  to 
prayer  iu,  -01 ;  a  revelry  by  night, 
202  ;  and  hurrying  to  and  fro,  203  ; 
mementos  from,  20C. 

Mars  Hill,  504  ;  Paul's  preaching  at, 
529. 

Martiueau,  Harriet,  reason  of  exclu- 
sion of,  from  convent  of  Mar  Saba, 
1D4. 

Mary,  tomb  of,  91. 

Mary  and  Martha,  house  of,  at  Beth- 
any, 114. 

Matterhorn,  Mt.  Athos  resembles  the, 
489. 

Mausolus,  Tomb  of,  at  Boudroum, 
368. 

Mecca,  Kaaba  at,  71 ;  pilgrims  to, 
fewer  than  to  Jerusalem,  105;  rude 
pictures  of,  484. 

Medea,  laurel-tree  planted  by,  454. 

Mediterranean  Hotel,  view  from,  36. 

Medjel,  village  of,  257. 

Megara,  heights  of,  514,  520. 

Mehemet  Pasha,  strange  adventures 
of  the  wife  of  the,  467,  468. 

Melchizedek,  tomb  of,  75. 

Meles,  the  river,  079. 

Men  of  Athens  noble  in  form  and  in- 
telligent of  face,  501. 

Messiah,  birthplace  of  the,  182. 

MetSwileh,  Moslem  sect  of,  245. 

Methodist,  a  primitive,  306. 

Metropolitan  Museum  of  New  York. 
Cesnola's  collection  chief  attraction 
of,  350. 

Michael,  the  angel,  print  of  hand  of, 
in  the  Sacred  Rock,  85. 

Middle  Ages,  customs  of,  maintained 
by  the  Greek  clergy  on  Mt.  Athos, 

Miletus,  remains  of,  369. 

Milk  Grotto,  mothers  resort  to,  for 
increase  of  milk,  186. 

Minerva  Promachus,  figure  of,  506 ; 
gold-ivory  statue  of,  500. 

Missionaries,  respect  for  American, 
at  Bey  rout,  241  ;  great  good  accom- 
plished by  the  schools  of,  27') ;  no- 
ble self-exiles,  270  ;  great  influence 
of,  316. 

Mississippi,  the  Ilissus  imagined  as 
large  as,  but  only  a  dry  gully, 
529. 

Missolonghi,  no  glimpse  of,  539. 

Mitylene,  the  ancient  Lesbos,  393  ; 
like  Castellamare  or  Sorrento,  393. 

Moab,  view  of  mountains  of,  53.  110. 

Moawyeh,  founder  of  dynasty  of  I 
Omeiyades,  2.*4. 

Mohammed,  footprint  of.  in  the  Sa- 
cred Rock,  85  ;  religion  of,  the  old- 
est, 207. 


Moloch,  image  of,  91 ;  an  ingenious 
contrivance  of  cruelty,  102. 

Monks,  their  love  of  flowerj  an  ex- 
pression of  tenderness  for  the  sex, 
341. 

Montefiore,  Sir  Moses,  the  rich  Jew, 
buildings  erected  by,  in  Jerusalem, 
61. 

Moorad,  Sultan,  Saracenic  kiosk  of, 
418  ;  unread  library  of,  419. 

Morea,  descendants  of  the  ancient 
Greeks  found  in,  501  ;  snowy  hills 
of,  seen  from  Gulf  of  Corinth,  536. 

Moses,  Fair  of,  207  ;  preparation  for, 
like  Fourth  of  July,  208. 

Moslem  wallers,  dry  grief  of,  178; 
ridden  over  by  sheyklis,  252. 

Moslems,  pertinacious  beggars,  110. 

Mosque  of  Kubbet-es-Sukhrah  most 
beautiful  in  the  world,  82 ;  a  blaze 
of  color,  83;  of  Aksa,  83;  touch- 
stone of  the  elect  in,  87  ;  print  of 
Christ's  foot  in,  87  ;  oi  Omar,  87  ; 
of  Jesus,  stone  cradle  of  the  infant 
Saviour  in,  88  ;  of  St.  Sophia  in  Sa- 
lonica,  mosaic  of  the  Transfigura- 
tion in,  481  ;  verd-antique  pulpit  in, 
from  which  St.  Paul  preached,  482. 

Mother  and  Child,  concealment  of,  in 
the  Milk  Grotto,  186. 

Mother-in-law,  wisdom  of  Ruth's, 
181. 

Mothers  of  heroes  well  formed,  510. 

Mount  Chimsera,  wonderful  light  of, 
360. 

Mount  Moriah,  06 ;  Scopus,  90  ;  Oli- 
vet, 90. 

Mu'allakah,  plain  of,  239,  243. 

Muezzin,  call  to  prayer  of,  in  Jaffa, 
25  ;  in  Damascus,  314. 

Muristim,  a  field  of  romance.  95  ;  .-ito 
of  the  hospital  and  church  of  the 
Knights  of  St.  John,  95. 

Music  of  the  Kant  anything  but  music, 
485. 

NAAMAX  the  Syrian,  place  where 
healed,  147. 

Napoleon,  selfish  and  small  nature  of, 
18. 

Narghileh,  Arabs  smoking,  201  ;  uni- 
versal use  of,  in  Damascus,  207. 

Nations,  the  life  of,  preserved  by 
progress,  not  by  attempts  to  make 
di-.ni  forms  live  again,  .V.I  ;  a  piti- 
ful sight  without  ideal«,  531. 

Nativity,  place  of  the,  174;  crypt  of, 
180 ;  columns  of  Church  of,  taken 
from  Solomon's  Temple,  182  ;  place 
of  burial  of  twenty  thousand  chil- 
dren massacred  by  Herod,  1S3. 

Nature  herself  despoiled  by  the 
Turks,  4.S7. 


562 


INDEX 


Navarino,  battle  of,  the  end  of  a  glo- 
rious struggle  for  independence, 
531. 

Nebo,  Mt,  148. 

Negropont,  Venetian  sovereignty 
over,  490 ;  name  of,  made  odious  by 
the  Turks,  490 ;  gradually  attract- 
ing commerce  and  capital,  491. 

Nero,  his  proposition  to  cut  a  canal 
across  the  Peloponnesus  feasible, 
536. 

Nestorius,  his  struggle  with  Cyril  in 
the  Council  of  Ephesus,  382. 

New  England,  rugged  surroundings 
of  Bethlehem  like,  176. 

New  York  Bay  like  Sea  of  Marmora, 
449. 

Nicene  Creed  proclaimed  by  Theodo- 
sius,  427. 

Nicodemus,  tomb  of,  70. 

Nightingale,  Florence,  visit  to  the 
great  hospital  controlled  by,  451 ; 
Turkish  wonder  that  America  should 
care  for  her,  452. 

Nightingales  singing  on  bank  of  the 
Bosphorus,  435 ;  in  gardens  of 
Athens,  513. 

Nile,  Temple  of  the  Sun  on  the,  248. 

Nisyros,  going  by,  367. 

Nubia,  people  of,  not  so  barbarous  as 
Moslem  waiters,  177  ;  blue  sky  of, 
252. 

Nursing-bottle,  fear  for  a,  408. 

Nut-brown  maids  of  Athens,  sweet 
classic  models,  516. 

OCCIDENT,  trade  in  the  vices  of  the, 
445. 

CEdipus,  scene  of  death  of,  520. 

(Eta,  Mt.,  Thermopylae  at  foot  of,  488. 

Olive  grove,  two  thousand  feet  up, 
lunch  in,  29  ;  David's  enjoyment  of 
the  view  of  the  valley  of  the  Medi- 
terranean from,  30 ;  ugly  old  trees 
the  five  kings  may  have  been  hanged 
on,  31. 

Olives,  Mount  of,  37,  49,  82,  90; 
wretched  view  of  worn-out  land 
from,  91 ;  its  rural  sweetness  and 
seclusion  gone,  110  ;  a  shabby  show- 
place  of  filthy  buildings  and  beg- 
gars, 110;  view  of  the  Jordan  val- 
ley, Dead  Sea,  and  mountains  of 
Moab  from,  111 ;  no  spot  for  rest 
or  quiet,  111  ;  reading  life  of  the 
Saviour  on,  111 ;  tender  memories 
of,  111. 

Olive-trees,  first  appearance  of,  19. 

Olympicum  in  Athens,  one  of  the 
most  stately  buildings  of  the  an- 
cients, 502. 

Olympus,  snowy  summit  of,  449,  474, 
484. 


Omar,  minaret  to,  96. 

Omeiyades,  dynasty  of  the,  266. 

Ophel,  47  ;  rocks  of,  source  of  Foun- 
tain of  the  Virgin,  98 ;  an  intermit- 
tent spring,  thought  to  be  the  real 
Pool  of  Bethesda,  98. 

Oranges  at  Jaffa  big  as  ostrich  eggs, 
but  all  peel,  7,  304. 

Orient,  Damascus  chief  city  of,  269  ; 
art  in  the,  297  ;  specimen  of  travel- 
ers in,  302  ;  music  of  the,  plaintive 
and  untrained,  444  ;  trade  in  the 
secrets  of  the,  445  ;  the  land  of  the 
imagination,  547. 

Oriental  travelers,  their  imaginations 
stronger  than  their  memories,  309. 

Oman,  threshing-floor  of,  site  of  the 
Sacred  Rock,  82. 

Ortakeui,  Sultan  goes  to  pray  in 
mosque  of,  439. 

Osmanli  adopt  the  Byzantine  emblem 
of  the  crescent,  426. 

Ossa,  Mt.,  484;  huge  bulk  of,  487. 

Ottoman  rule,  belief  in  near  extinc- 
tion of,  not  warranted  by  the  course 
of  history,  462. 

Ouardy,  Antoine,  our  guide's  quarrel 
with,  319-336. 

PAGAS.SEUS,  Bay  of,  488. 

Palema,  St.,  silver  coffin  of,  484. 

Palestine,  the  construction  of  a  har- 
bor at  Jaffa  the  first  step  towards 
its  regeneration,  4 ;  its  people  must 
learn  to  work  before  it  can  be  re- 
deemed, 11 ;  to  support  Jews  or 
Gentiles  by  charity  only  adds  to 
misery,  11  ;  withdrawal  of  Jews 
suddenly  from  business  would  cause 
disaster,  but  none  but  Jews  would 
oppose  their  migration  to  the  Holy 
Land,  12 ;  the  actual  boy  here  not 
the  Sunday-school  boy's  ideal  at 
home,  13 ;  Old  Put  more  to  him 
than  Samson,  13  ;  vast  yearly  move- 
ment to,  105 ;  to  obstruct  it  would 
bring  on  another  Holy  War,  105. 

Pallas  Athene,  sitting  in  Temple  of, 
506. 

Palmyra,  way  to,  311  ;  colonnade  at, 
312. 

Pamphylia,  ancient  coast  of,  360. 

Pan  lurked  in  the  groves  about  Ephe- 
sus, 384. 

Panachaicum,  Mt.,  higher  than  Mt. 
Washington,  538. 

Panathenaic  Stadium,  chariot  races 
in,  530. 

Pangaus,  Mt.,  476. 

Panhellenic  festivals  held  in  the  Isth- 
mian Sanctuary,  536. 

Paphos,  ancient  coins  found  at.  346, 
351 ;  danger  of  excavations  at,  353 ; 


INDEX 


563 


Paul  darkens  the  vision  of  Klymaa 
at,  353. 

Paradise,  Damascus  the  earthly,  209  ; 
Valley  of  the  Heavenly  Water  a 
foretaste  of,  43(5. 

Parchment  rolls,  few  genuine  ancient, 
118. 

Parnassus,  heights  of,  seen  from  Pen- 
telicus,  525. 

Parnes,  495. 

Parthenon,  creamy  columns  of,  505. 

t'asha,  an  interview  witli  a,  329. 

Patched  clothing  the  last  confession 
of  poverty,  474. 

Patmos,  glimpse  of,  309 ;  monastery 
of  St.  John  at,  3(59. 

Patras,  arrival  at,  538. 

Patriarch  of  Armenia,  visit  to,  '208 ; 
kindliness  of,  209. 

Patroclus,  statue  of,  in  Museum  at 
Athens,  527. 

Pattens,  richly  ornamented,  295  ;  un- 
graceful walking  with,  295. 

Paul,  at  Ephesus,  390 ;  his  preaching 
at  Thessalonica,  482. 

Paula,  disciple  of  Jerome,  183 ;  mo- 
ther-in-law of  God,  184. 

Pa.xos,  legend  of,  recorded  by  Plu- 
tarch, 541. 

Pegasus,  our  Arab  steed  a,  153 ;  race 
for  an  eagle's  feather  with,  153. 

?eleus,  father  of  Achilles,  489. 

Pelion,  Mt.,  484  ;  Ossa  might  well 
ride  on  back  of,  487. 

Peloponnesus,  people  of,  not  descend- 
ed from  the  ancient  Greeks,  501  ; 
passage  by,  535. 

'entelictis,  495,  514,  520 :  plain  of 
Marathon  seen  from,  522;  monas- 
tery on,  a  hive  of  drones,  523 ; 
yearly  dance  of  youths  and  maidens 
on,  523 ;  marble  for  Temple  of  The- 
seus, the  Parthenon,  the  Propyhca, 
and  other  public  buildings  taken 
from,  524 ;  whole  mountain  over- 
grown with  laurel,  524  ;  shepherd- 
boys  with  their  crooks  and  flocks 
of  goats  on.  524  ;  brigands  capture 
a  party  of  Englishmen  on.  524. 

Pera,  no  donkeys  or  drayd  in,  409 : 
men  the  beasts  of  burden,  409. 

IVre-la-chaise,  cemetery  of  Scutari 
nearly  as  attractive  as,  450. 

Pericles,  the  Propyln>a  built  under 
direction  of,  505. 

Perseus,  battle  of,  with  .Emilius 
Paul  us,  480. 

P  TsUns,  camp  of.  on  Mts.  Scopus 
and  Olivet.  90. 

IVrsuasiiin  and  Necessity  two  mighty 
dMtiesof  Athens,  491." 

I'etra,  renowned  sea-fortress  of. 
100. 


Pfeiffer,  Madame,  why  not  admitted 

to  convent  of  Mar  Saba,  194. 
Phalerum,  Bay  of,  495,  507. 
Pharaoh,  Solomon's  wife  daughter  of, 

91. 

Pharpar,  glimpse  of,  310. 

Pharsalia,  Pompey's  flight  from  the 
battle  of,  480. 

Phidias,  statue  of  Minerva  Promachus 
by,  5(H5. 

Philippi,  last  battle  of  republican 
Home  fought  at,  470  ;  Paul's  preach- 
ing and  imprisonment  at,  470 ;  an 
earthquake  opens  his  prison,  470. 

Philistines,  extent  of  their  posses- 
sions, 12*2. 

Philopappus,  monument  of,  507. 

Phoenician  walls,  remains  of  ancient, 
at  Ba'albek,  247 ;  huge  stones  at,  248. 

Phoenicians,  country  of,  122 ;  first 
gave  the  world  letters,  228 ;  provi- 
dential protection  of,  from  the  Jews, 
a  blessing  to  the  world,  228;  arts 
of,  229  ;  manufactures  of  glass  by, 
more  perfect  than  Egyptian,  229  ; 
great  navigators,  232  ;  the  Yankees 
of  the  Levant,  345;  allies  of  Thot- 
mes  III.  in  capture  of  Cyprus,  340. 

Phylactery,  description  and  use  of, 
118. 

Pierian  plain,  485. 

Pilate,  house  of,  49,  50. 

Pilgrims  to  Jerusalem  an  interesting 
study,  105,  170 ;  more  numerous 
than  to  Mecca,  105 ;  camp  of,  a 
scene  of  credulity  and  knavery, 
103  ;  motley  ship-load  of,  358. 

Pillaging  crusaders  and  contemptible 
Byzantines,  487. 

Pion,  hill  of,  supposed  acropolis  of 
Ephesus,  385,  380. 

Pir;pus,  peninsula  of  the,  494 ;  much 
like  an  American  town,  494  ;  forti- 
fied by  Themistocles.  495. 

Pisgah,  Mt.,  148. 

Pisistratus,  Temple  of  Jupiter  begun 
by,  502. 

Plain  of  Sharon,  occupied  by  the  New 
England  Israel,  11  ;  massacre  of 
Jaffa  occurred  near  here.  IS. 

Plattra,  battle  of,  432  ;  field  of,  517. 

Plato's  grove  of  Academe,  519. 

Pleasure,  chase  of.  440. 

Pnyx.  association  of  great  names  with 
the.  507,  528,  504. 

Poetry,  source  of  lyric,  394. 

Poets.  Oriental,  have  not  and  cannot 
exonerate  the  glories  of  the  R'>*. 
pborus,  454. 

Poison,  the  cure-all  and  end-all  of  the 
Itilian*.  492. 

Polvcrates,  once  governor  of  Samos, 
370. 


564 


INDEX 


Pompey,  halt  of,  in  the  Vale  of  Tempo 
alter  Pharsalia,  486. 

Pontifical  Rome  less  tolerant  of  Pro- 
testantism than  Moslem  Turkey, 
464. 

Pontus  Euxiuus  once  set  thick  with 
towns  like  the  Riviera  of  Italy,  400. 

Porch,  Solomon's,  more  grand  than 
Babylon  or  Ba'albek,  89,  90. 

Poi-t  Said,  arrival  at,  April  5th,  2. 

Powilio,  Cape  of,  487. 

Post,  Dr.,  of  Bey  rout,  317. 

Potter's  Field,  101. 

Poverty  and  Inability  two  churlish 
gods  of  the  Andrians,  491. 

Prayer,  rush  of  crowd  to  see  Sultan 
go  to,  439  ;  grand  salvos  of  artillery 
announce  the  beginning  of  his  devo- 
tions, 440. 

Praxiteles,  statue  of  Venus  by,  367. 

Precious  stones,  great  traffic  in, 
throughout  the  East,  414';  bargaining 
for,  with  an  ancient  Moslem,  415. 

Press,  good  work  of  the,  in  Beyrout, 
317. 

Prince  of  Oldenburg,  214. 

Printing  in  Greece,  rude  character  of, 
499. 

Procession  to  the  Fair  of  Moses,  214  ; 
irregular  order  of,  215 ;  cheap  and 
childish  display,  216. 

Prodigal  son,  fed  on  husks  of  the 
carob-tree,  19. 

Promised  Land,  extent  of,  121 ;  self- 
denial  of  many  to  see,  306. 

Prophet,  last  companions  of  the,  fell 
at  Ayub,  446. 

Propylwa,  the  noblest  gateway  ever 
built,  504 ;  pride  of  the  ancients, 
505. 

Proserpine,  myth  of,  518. 

Prussian  government  exploring  neigh- 
borhood of  Jerusalem,  96 ;  impor- 
tance of  its  discoveries,  96. 

Ptolemy,  ancient  cities  of  Cyprus  de- 
scribed by,  349. 

Purity  maintained  by  flight  of  nymphs 
from  Keos,  492. 

Pydna,  grand  battle  of,  486. 

Pyramids,  time  of  the  building  of,  265. 

Pythagoras,  birthplace  of,  370. 

QUADRENNIAL  Exposition  of  Greece, 
visit  to,  a  rude  shock  to  the  senti- 
ment of  antiquity,  499. 

Quails  scudding  along  the  surface,  19. 

Quarantania,  mount  of  Christ's  temp- 
tation, honeycombed  with  hermits' 
cells,  148. 

Quarrel  of  dragomen,  319-336. 

RACHEL,  burial-place  of,  176  ;  building 
over,  177. 


Rae.  Ed  wan!,  our  cart-ride  in  Cyprus 
Lkctohed  by,  342. 

Ramah  and  Guth,  David's  lodging  be- 
tween, 30. 

Rameses  II.,  statue  of,  527. 

Rimleh,  rough  road  to,  16;  square 
Saracenic  tower  at,  20  ;  Latin  con- 
vent at,  20  ;  its  gratuitous  hospital- 
ity a  pleasing  delusion,  21  ;  hour  e 
all  roofs,  21  ;  sunset  from,  21  ; 
sound  of  mule-bells  brings  Italy  to 
Palestine,  21  ;  pompous  reception 
of  our  party  at,  22  ;  "  General  "-ized 
by  the  father  confessor,  a  "  rank  " 
imposition,  22  ;  lighted  to  bed  by 
antique  Roman  lamps,  23 ;  room 
like  a  tomb,  23 ;  most  rural  ruins 
seen  in  the  East.  223 ;  delightful 
view  from,  223. 

I  Red  Khan,  scene  of  the  Jerichoian's 
encounter  with  the  thieves,  139. 

Rehoboam,  visit  of,  to  Jeroboam  a 
rough  chariot-ride,  102. 

Relics,  abundance  of,  to  worship  in 
Jerusalem,  77. 

Religious  toleration  in  the  Levant 
granted  by  the  Turks  earlier  than 
by  Rome,  453,  464. 

Revelations,  place  of  the  writing  of 
the,  369. 

Rheiti,  the  salt-springs,  515. 

Rhode  Island,  Athens  only  two  thirds 
as  large  as,  494. 

Rhodes,  city  of,  made  memorable  by 
the  Knights  of,  94 ;  picturesque 
site  of,  363 ;  ancient  splendor  of, 
364  ;  artistic  remains  of  the  Knights 
in,  365 ;  cleanly  and  healthy,  366 ; 
possible  restoration  of,  371. 

Richard  Cceur  de  Lion  in  Cyprus,  340, 
347. 

Riha,  on  site  of  the  ancient  Gilgal, 
143. 

Road  to  Jerusalem  a  hard  road  to 
travel,  19. 

Roads  in  Palestine  rough,  stony  mule- 
paths,  190. 

Roberts  College,  night  spent  with  Dr. 
Washburne  at,  434 ;  commanding 
site  of,  like  West  Point,  436  ;  wisely 
planted  here,  437. 

Robinson's  Arch,  65. 

Rocks,  silicious  limestone,  give  the 
country  an  ashy  appearance,  30. 

Roman  Empire,  486.  • 

Romance,  mythology,  history,  start 
up  everywhere  in  Grecian  waters, 
491. 

Rome,  conquering  eagles  of,  90. 

Rose  of  Sharon  probably  not  a  rose  at 
all,  20. 

Russian  church  in  Athens,  no  seats  in, 
508  ;  form  of  worship  in,  508. 


INDEX 


565 


Russian  hospice,  appearance  of,  35 ; 
description  of,  106  ;  great  variety  of 
its  pilgrim  guests,  107  ;  curious  rel- 
ics collected  by,  108  ;  awe  and  won- 
der these  will  excite  at  home,  108. 

Ruth,  place  of  her  meeting  with  Boaz, 
175,  180. 

SABAS,  ST.,  a  monk  of  Christian  man- 
liness as  well  as  sanctity,  189  ; 
tomb  of,  195  ;  cell  of,  a  lion's  den, 
'205. 

Sirred  edifices,  difference  between 
Greek,  Roman,  and  Egyptian,  '253. 

Sacred  Rock,  Mahomet's  ascent  from, 
84  ;  its  miraculous  suspension,  84  ; 
place  01  prayer  of  Jesus,  Abraham, 
David,  and  Solomon,  85. 

s  iil  through  summer  seas,  357. 

S  iladin,  citadel  of,  36  ;  military  head- 
quarters of,  96  ;  tomb  of,  in  business 
part  of  Damascus,  278. 

Silahiyeh,  ride  to,  310. 

S  ilamis,  founded  by  Teucer,  345  ;  re- 
treat of  Greek  ships  to,  after  Ther- 
mopylae, 488 ;  beauty  of  its  women 
keeps  up  its  fame,  488 ;  tomb  of 
Themistocles  in  sight  of,  495  ;  bleak 
and  rocky  island  of,  515. 

Salonica,  Gulf  of,  484. 

Samaria,  highway  to,  102. 

Samos,  isle  of,  370 ;  its  wine  more 
noted  than  its  arts  or  its  heroes, 
370  ;  birthplace  of  Pythagoras,  370. 

Samothrace,  476 ;  sunset  view  of,  479. 

Samson,  country  of,  28. 

Samuel,  ashes  of  the  Prophet,  depos- 
ited in  Church  of  St.  Sophia,  426. 

Santa  Croce,  mountain  of,  338. 

Sappho,  lived  at  Lesbos,  394  ;  descrip- 
tion and  death  of,  395  ;  precipice 
leaped  from  by,  396. 

Saracens,  Olivet  and  Scopus  trodden 
by,  90 ;  wall  built  by,  247. 

Sardis,  Smyrna  older  thuu,37r> ;  beau- 
tiful country  around,  379. 

Sargon  conquers  Cyprus,  346. 

Saul,  flight  of,  from  David,  30. 

Scanderbeg,  sword  of,  kept  as  a  relic, 
421. 

Scio  ravaged  by  the  Turks,  372. 

S'utiri,  on  site  of  the  Greek  and 
Persian  Chrysopolis,  448  ;  important 
place  from  earliest  times,  448  ;  hunt- 
ing-place of  Roman  and  Byzantine 
eni|>erors,  448  ;  arrival  and  starting- 
place  of  ancient  Eastern  travel,  448  ; 
cemetery  of,  preferred  to  that  of 
Kyouh,  450 ;  mumbled  service  of 
English  church  at,  452. 

Search  for  a  silver  coin  in  Rhodes,  365. 

Sea-robbers,  the  Greek,  hauled  up  their 
barks  at  Scutari,  448. 


Seat  of  Solomon  in  no  particular  spot, 
60. 

Selim,  old  mosque  of  the  Sultan  at 
Ayasolook,  381  ;  noted  for  the  two 
councils  held  in  it,  381. 

Sepulchral  sleeping-place,  200. 

Sepulchre,  Church  of  the  Holy,  37; 
credulity  shaken  by  seeing  too  many 
sacred  sites,  38  ;  shut  in  by  houses, 
39 ;  lane  leading  to  it  noisy  with 
petty  trnmc,  39 ;  made  more  a  den 
of  thieves  than  a  place  of  holy  re- 
sort, 39  ;  so  many  times  destroyed 
and  rebuilt,  its  site  in  doubt,  41  ; 
a  Turk  warden  of,  42  ;  pilgrims 
from  all  countries  crowding  in  and 
out  of,  44  ;  solemnity  of  scene  with- 
in, 44  ;  rough  sepulchral  stone  worn 
smooth  by  kissing,  44  ;  some  ap- 
proach it  with  streaming  eyes,  all 
in  awe  of  the  sacred  place,  45  ;  de- 
scription of,  69  ;  centre  of  the  earth 
in,  71  ;  impious  specimen  of  beggars 
at,  71 ;  holy  fire  at,  77  ;  holy  places 
of,  77. 

Seraglio  of  Stamboul,  visit  to,  417  ; 
lovely  situation  fora  royal  seat,  417  ; 
hundreds  of  beasts  slaughtered  to 
feed  the  household,  418 ;  treasure- 
room  of,  richest  in  the  world,  419  ; 
eye  weary  of  seeing  the  barbarous 
display,  419. 

Seraglio  Point,  heights  of,  407. 

Seven  Sleepers,  cave  of,  at  Ephesus, 
38(5,  387. 

Seven  wonders  of  the  world,  Temple 
of  Diana  one  of  the,  385. 

Shade-trees  in  Athens,  utility  and  en- 
joyment of,  498. 

Shepherd  Kings,  or  Hittites,  Abra- 
ham's visit  to  Egypt  in  reign  of, 
264. 

Shepherds,  place  of  angel's  appearing 
to,  181. 

Shimei,  pursuit  of  David  by,  90. 

Shoemaker,  a  self-denying,  spiritual- 
minded,  306. 

Slwepira  collection  of  ancient  pottery, 
doubtful  antiquity  of,  119. 

Sidon,  sight  of,  230  ;  oldest  Ph'vnicbn 
city,  a  heap  of  ruins,  231  ;  arts  and 
arms  of,  sung  by  Homer,  233. 

Silk  bazaars  of  Damascus,  285  ;  great 
traffic  in,  2S5. 

Siloam,  Pool  of,  47  ;  not  a  sweet  '•  shady 
rill,"  but  a  dirty  sink-hole,  99 ;  vil- 
lage of,  a  nest  of  huts  and  caves,  92, 
99;  its  traders  hungrier  than  its 
beggars,  99;  most  disgusting  place 
in  the  East,  99. 

Simon,  the  tanner,  house  of,  where 
Peter  saw  the  vision,  8  ;  spot  where 
the  brotherhood  of  man  was  first 


566 


INDEX 


proclaimed,  9  ;  the  Cyrenian,  bearer 
of  the  cross,  49  ;  the  leper,  114. 

Singing,  nasal  whine  of,  in  the  East, 
485. 

Skiathos,  island  of,  488. 

Skopelos,  Mt.,  488. 

Skyros,  Achilles  hidden  among  the 
maidens  of,  in  woman's  apparel,  490. 

Smoking  customs  of  different  nations, 
267. 

Smyrna,  375 ;  difficult  landing  at,  375 ; 
a  city  which  is  nothing  and  every- 
thing, 376 ;  like  Damascus,  has  en- 
dured through  all  changes  of  rulers 
and  conditions,  and  continued  pros- 
perous under  all,  376  ;  language  and 
dress  like  that  of  European  cities, 
378 ;  charms  against  evil  sold  in, 
387  ;  departure  from,  392. 

Socrates,  prison  of,  508,  529  ;  walks 
and  talks  of  Plato  with,  519;  last 
immortal  discourse  of,  529. 

Soldiers  seen  everywhere  in  European 
cities,  502  ;  bar  with  bayonets  the 
way  to  objects  of  interest,  546. 

Soli,  Cesnola's  discoveries  in,  351. 

Solomon,   Pool  of,   source   of  all  the 

other  "pools,"  42;  mother  of,  52; 

seat  of,  CO  ;  stables  of,  88  ;  Garden 

•  of,  an  arid  spot,  99  ;  quarries  of,  104. 

Solon,  Demosthenes,  and  his  great 
compeers,  507. 

Sophia,  Church  of  Santa,  the  House  of 
Divine  Wisdom,  422 ;  Justinian's 
exclamation  on  entering,  422 ; 
eclipsed  the  grandeur  of  the  Tem- 
ple of  Jerusalem,  423 ;  all  the  world 
brought  to  contribute  to  its  splen- 
dor, 423 ;  wonderful  dome  of,  424 ; 
grand  proportions  of  the  interior, 
424 ;  site  of,  flooded  with  historical 
associations,  425. 

Sophocles,  the  sacred  Colonus  cele- 
brated by,  as  the  scene  of  the  death 
of  (Edipus,  520. 

Spanish  spoken  by  Jews  of  Jerusalem, 
63. 

Sparta,  not  jealous  of  the  attempt  to 
revive  the  ancient  games  in  Athens. 
530. 

Spies,  escape  of,  from  Jericho,  283. 

Sporades,  group  of  the,  488. 

Stables,  Solomon's,  a  wet  underground 
cavern,  88 ;  unpleasant  visit  to,  88. 

Stadium  at  Ephesus,  387. 

St.  Anne,  convent  of,  50. 

Stamboul,  at  night,  405 ;  bridge  at, 
rotten  like  the  Sultan's  empire,  411; 
bazaars  of,  more  magnificent  than 
any  other  in  the  East,  412 ;  its 
mopques  and  bazaars  its  chief  at- 
traction, 41C ;  Seraglio  of,  417  ;  fine 
view  from,  417  j  world  shudders  at 


unrevealed  secrets  of,  421  ;  a  place 
of  gorgeous  sepulture,  429 ;  splen- 
did spectacle  of  blazing  windows 
and  minarets  at,  447. 

Star  of  Bethlehem,  and  other  flowers 
of  the  East,  26. 

Steamer  to  Corinth  crowded  with 
noisy  politicians,  537. 

St.  James,  tomb  of,  91 . 

St.  John,  Knights  of,  47 ;  romance  of, 
95  ;  their  glory  in  the  Levant,  96  ; 
hospice  of,  220,  223;  headquarters 
of,  at  Akka,  227  ;  massive  walls  of, 
at  Rhodes,  361 ;  Church  of,  in  Eph- 
esus, 381. 

St.  John  the  Baptist,  birthplace  of, 
32 ;  head  of,  kept  in  gold  casket, 
275 ;  tomb  of,  in  Damascus,  276. 

St.  Luke,  tomb  of,  387. 

Stone  of  Unction,  pilgrims  kneeling 
on,  43. 

Stones,  precious,  extensive  trade  in, 
414. 

Storks,  the  sacred  birds,  feeding  in  the 
meadows,  19 ;  conspicuous  perching 
of,  on  tombs  and  towers,  in  ruins 
of  Ayasolook,  381. 

Story  of  an  English  physician  in  the 
East,  464. 

Stoura,  jolly  inn  at,  255. 

St.  Paul,  place  of  his  escape  from  Da- 
mascus in  a  basket,  282 ;  prison  of, 
at  Ephesus,  388. 

St.  Peter's  at  Kome,  colossal  propor- 
tions of,  424. 

Strabo,  ancient  cities  of  Cyprus  men- 
tioned by,  349. 

St.  Stephen,  place  of  martyrdom  of, 
60. 

St.  Stephen's  Gate,  49,  189. 

St.  Veronica,  house  of,  49. 

Stylites,  Simeon,  pillar  of,  said  to  be 
near  Beshiktash,  454. 

Sublime  Porte,  world  known  gate  of 
the,  418. 

Sugar-cane,  evidence  of  former  culti- 
vation of,  by  the  Crusaders,  143. 

Suleiman  the  Magnificent,  citadel  of, 
51  ;  defense  of  Knights  against,  at 
Rhodes,  364  ;  mosque  of,  428. 

Sunium,  Temple  of  Minerva  on,  492. 

Sunset  on  the  Bosphorus,  447, 462 ;  on 
the  Mgetm,  478 ;  in  the  ruins  of  the 
Temple  of  Jupiter  at  Athens,  502, 
507. 

Superstition  clung  to  more  persist- 
ently by  Christians  than  Moslems, 
197. 

Susanna,  confusion  of,  52. 

Sweet  Waters  of  Europe,  443. 

Syme,  island  of,  367. 

Symplegades,  halt  of  the  Argonauts 
at,  459. 


IXDEX 


567 


Synagogues  ill  kept,  64. 

Syria,  only  good  road  in,  236 ;  needs 
practical,  working,  living  Christian- 
ity for  its  reformation,  241 ;  fearful 
condition  of  people  of,  301. 

Syrian  horses  not  reliable  beasts,  190. 

Syrian  house,  peculiar  characteristics 
of,  246. 

Syrian  rivers,  sudden  appearance  and 
disappearance  of,  247. 

TAKING  a  bath  at  Damascus,  278 ;  de- 
liciousness  of,  279. 

Tamerlane,  Ayasolook  once  the  camp 
of,  380;  armlet  of,  421. 

Tarshish,  dealings  of,  with  Jaffa,  3. 

Telos,  passing  island  of,  367. 

Tempe,  Vale  of,  486. 

Temple,  Solomon's,  66 ;  Beautiful  Gate 
of,  80 ;  splendor  of  the  area,  80. 

Temple  of  the  Sun,  remains  of,  at  Ba'- 
albek,  248 ;  splendor  of,  greater 
than  imagined,  249 ;  defaced  by  Mos- 
lems, 249. 

Temptation,  light  on  Mount  of,  167. 

Tenedos  passed  in  the  night,  397, 401  ; 
seen  on  return,  475. 

Ten  Tribes,  the  extinction  of,  126. 

Tents,  picturesque  appearance  of, 
among  the  olive-trees  of  Mt.  Olivet, 
109. 

Teucer,  founder  of  Salamis,  345. 

Thasos,  home  of  the  poet  Archilochus, 
476 ;  pristine  luxuriance  of  the  ve- 
getation of,  476. 

Thebes,  remains  of,  517. 

Themistocles,  his  siege  of  Andros, 
491 ;  tomb  of,  in  the  Pinpus,  495. 

Theodora,  seat  of,  in  Mosque  of  St. 
Sophia,  425. 

Theodosius,  basilica  built  in  reign  of, 
250 ;  atrocious  brutality  of,  in  Thes- 
salonica,  483. 

"  There  is  no  God  but  God,  and  Mo- 
hammed is  his  Prophet,"  428. 

Thermae,  ancient  name  of  Thessalo- 
nica,  479 ;  Gulf  of,  485. 

Thermopylie,  defeat  at,  488. 

Theseus,  bones  of,  found  by  Cymon, 
490 ;  Temple  of,  the  best  preserved, 
and  if  the  only  one  would  be  worth 
a  pilgrimage  to  see,  526. 

Thessalonians  of  the  present  day  do 
not  read  the  Epistles  to  the,  485. 

Thessalonica  shortened  to  Salonica, 
479 ;  conjuring  up  the  history  of  the 
past  in,  479 ;  description  of,  480  ; 
Byzantine  remains  at,  481 ;  Mosque 
of  St.  Sophia  in,  481  ;  quarter  of  de- 
scendants of  Jews  expelled  by  Isa- 
bella, 481 ;  barbarity  of  Theodosius 
in,  483 ;  Mosque  of  St.  George  the 
oldest  church  in,  483. 

Thessaly,  plains  of,  488 ;  perfect  horse- 


manship of  the  people  of,  gave  rise 
to  the  fable  of  the  Centaurs,  488. 

"  The  world  grows  old,"  443. 

Thief,  the  penitent,  birthplace  of,  27. 

"  Thirty  Years  in  a  Harem,"  written 
by  the  estranged  wife  of  an  English 
physician,  466. 

Thotmea  III.,  greatest  of  the  Pha- 
raolis,  possession  of  Syria  and  Cy- 
prus by,  346. 

Thracian  coast,  476,  487. 

Throni,  ancient  city  of,  traced  out  by 
Cesnola,  351. 

Tiglath-Pileser  attempts  destruction 
of  Damascus,  265. 

Tiles,  a  bit  of  experience  in  buying, 
286. 

Timnath,  where  Zorah  got  his  Philis- 
tine wife,  28. 

Timothy,  St.,  reburied  in  Church  of 
St.  Sophia,  426. 

Titus,  destruction  of  Jerusalem  by, 
48,  62. 

Toleration  will  yet  make  the  Archi- 
pelago the  Paradise  of  the  world, 
487,  488. 

Tombs  of  the  Sultans  at  Starnboul, 
429. 

Tombs  of  Hiram,  Frederick  Barba- 
rosaa,  and  Origen  near  together, 
230. 

Tophanna,  quay  of,  407. 

Tophet,  valley  of,  100,  189. 

Tralles,  ancient,  379  ;  great  tanneries 
of,  379. 

Transfiguration,  mosaic  of,  in  Mosque 
of  St.  Sophia,  in  Salonica,  482. 

Travelers,  specimen  of  Eastern,  302. 

Traveling  in  Palestine,  difference  be- 
tween present  and  past,  147  :  French 
system  of,  peculiar  and  particular, 
2<iO. 

Tricks  of  trade  in  purchase  of  an- 
tiques, 289. 

Trinity  of  tyranny,  religion,  and  fac- 
tion at  Stamboul,  430. 

Triumphal  Entry,  road  of  the,  114; 
grand  pageant  on,  214. 

Trojan  war,  Tyre  built  about  the  time 
of,  228. 

Troy  not  seen,  397,  401 ;  glimpse  of 
the  plain  of,  475. 

Truth  stranger  than  fiction  in  the  life 
of  an  Eastern  beauty,  464. 

Tsur  or  Sur,  "the  rock,"  Arab  name 
of  Tyre,  227. 

Tuileries  "  grander  than  the  Pyra- 
mids," 304. 

Turf,  delight  at  seeing  in  the  East  our 
New  England,  458. 

Turkish  women,  intrigue  of,  465. 

Turks,  Holy  Sepulchre  guarded  by, 
42 ;  nerve  of.  in  putting  down  the 
Janizaries,  432  ;  destructiveuesa  of, 


568 


INDEX 


greater  than  that  of  all  their  prede- 
cessors, 487. 

Turquoise  stones,  rare  and  costly, 
trade  in,  414. 

Tyre,  passage  past,  227  ;  Hiram's  tomb 
at,  230. 

Tyrophoean  Valley,  66. 

ULYSSES  and  Penelope,  story  of,  540. 

Uncleanliuess  in  the  East  akin  to  god- 
liness, 188. 

University  of  Athens,  progressive  in- 
fluence of,  510 ;  library  of,  511 ;  por- 
trait or  bust  of  Washington  wanted 
for,  511. 

Uriah,  David  smitten  by  wife  of,  52. 

VALE  of  the  Heavenly  Water,  436, 
443. 

Vale  of  Tempe,  the  sunny  retreat  of 
the  Gods,  486. 

Valley  of  the  Jordan,  memorable  night 
in,  149 ;  depth  of,  below  the  sea, 
149 ;  danger  of  camp  in,  149 ;  geo- 
logical peculiarity  of,  163. 

Veils  in  the  East  not  worn  to  conceal 
beauty  so  much  as  ugliness,  312. 

Venetians,  ancient  manufacture  of 
glass  by  the  Phoenicians  revived  by, 
229. 

Venus,  steamer,  departure  from  Jaffa 
in,  225 ;  discomfort  of  the  pilgrim 
passengers  on,  225 ;  circular  temple 
of,  at  Ba'albek,  251 ;  temple  of,  in 
Golgos,  discovered  by  Cesnola,  350 ; 
shrine  and  statue  of,  in  Cnidus,  367  ; 
born  of  the  sea-foam,  540. 

Via  Dolorosa,  a  narrow,  gloomy  thor- 
oughfare, 49. 

Via  Sacra,  ancient  processions  in,  506, 
513. 

Vice  has  saved  the  names  of  emperors, 
432. 

Virgin  and  Child,  painted  black,  24. 

Virgin  Mary,  Fountain  of  the,  47,  97  ; 
place  of  residence  and  death  of,  60  ; 
place  of  appearance  of  the  Lord  to, 
73. 

Viva  Maria,  our  salutation  on  return- 
ing to  a  Christian  land,  546. 

WADY  'ALY,  inn  at,  222. 

Wady  Hamm&na,  238. 

Wailers  of  Damascus,  283. 

Wailing-place  of  the  Jews,  51 ;  Lam- 
entations and  Psalms  read  at,  67  ;  a 
grotesque  assemblage,  67. 

Wandering  Jew,  house  of  the,  49. 

Washburne,  Dr.,  President  of  Roberts 
College,  434. 

Washington,  "nothing  can  beat  the 
Capitol  at,"  303. 

Way  of  Triumph,  Christ's  entry  of 
Jerusalem  by,  90. 


Well  of  the  Leaf,  entrance  to  Paradise 
from,  88;  of  Bethlehem,  David's 
thirst  for  the  waters  of,  187. 

Western  civilization  and  business  hab- 
its will  change  the  character  of  the 
East,  464. 

"Wilderness  of  Judaea,"  our  wrong 
notions  of,  135 ;  a  scene  of  utter 
desolation,  135. 

Wild-flowers,  fields  carpeted  with,  20 ; 
brilliancy  of,  about  Ramleh,  26. 

Wine  of  Mar  Saba  liquid  sunshine,  199. 

Wingless  Victory,  Temple  of  the,  507. 

Women,  rule  and  ruin  of  Solomon  by, 
91 ;  Fountain  of  Accused,  98  ;  drink- 
ing of,  test  of  purity,  98 ;  veiled 
Turkish,  like  sheeted  ghosts,  109; 
by  the  Jordan,  like  women  the  world 
over,  complain  of  injustice  of  men, 
167 ;  Moslem,  like  Indian  squaws, 
178 ;  form  in  which  the  Devil  ap- 
peared to  the  hermits  of  the  early 
ages,  194 ;  of  Cyprus,  not  beauties, 
343 ;  changes  of  the  world  due  to 
restlessness  of,  477  ;  best  preserve 
the  primeval  traits,  544. 

Wood,  Rev.  Mr.,  entertained  by,  at 
Zahleh,  243;  Mr.,  of  Ephesus,  384. 

XANTHUS,  mysterious  light  of,  360. 

Xenophon  rested  at  Scutari  after  his 
campaign  against  Cyrus,  448. 

Xerxes,  children  of,  sheltered  by  Ar- 
temisia after  battle  of  Salamis,  389 ; 
crossing  of  the  Dardanelles  at  Aby- 
dos  by,  402 ;  ancient  canal  of,  near 
Mt.  Athos,  477  ;  broken  and  flying 
fleet  of,  495 ;  a  petty  fight  in  com- 
parison witli  modern  naval  battles, 
but  freighted  with  momentous  con- 
sequences, 508 ;  "  rocky  brow  "  on 
which  he  sat  spectator  of  the  fight, 
515. 

YANKEE,  dialect  of  the,  heard  in  Jaffa, 
13 ;  encounter  with  the,  takes  ro- 
mance out  of  the  East ;  16 ;  Phoani- 
cians  like  the,  345. 

ZACHARIAS,  tomb  of,  91. 

Zacyntlius  renowned  for  its  hospital- 
ity, 539. 

Zahleh,  curious  town  of,  240;  burnt 
by  the  Druses  in  I860,  240. 

Zamzummim,  tribe  of,  233. 

Zante,  welcomed  to,  with  flowers  and 
fruit,  539. 

Zeno,  birthplace  of,  341. 

Zeuxippus,  Nestorius  looking  for  help 
from,  in  the  Council  of  Ephesus, 
383. 

Zion,  palace  on,  built  by  David,  52; 
Gate  of,  55  ;  Mount,  66. 

Zorah,  country  of,  28. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY,  LOS  ANGELES 

COLLEGE  LIBRARY 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


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